Where does the Danube river flow? flows into the Black Sea. Tour on the Danube

This one of the largest rivers in Europe is also the ancestral home of the birth of civilization. The Danube is the sacred river of the Slavs. She is often mentioned in songs, fairy tales, legends and traditions of all Slavic peoples. In addition, the history of the Celts, Thracians, Illyrians and Greeks is connected with the history of the Danube. In ancient times, the Greeks called the Danube the same as the Thracians who lived along the banks of this river - Istres. And only later, already in Roman times, its modern name was assigned to the river, which was pronounced and written as Danubius. In the 7th century BC, the Greeks founded a colony south of the river delta and called it Istria.
The ancients looked for the sources of the river at the beginning of the Riphean mountains. Then far to the north, and later in the country of the Celts in the Hercynian forest. But already in the year 15 BC, during the reign of Tiberius, the true sources of the Danube were established: it begins on the massif now called the Black Forest with two sources at a height of 1 kilometer.
Since the reign of Augustus, the Danube has become the border of the Roman state with the northern barbarians.

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE DANUBE
Danube (Roman Dunărea, Hungarian Duna, German Donau, Serbian Dunav, Slovak Dunaj, Bulgarian Dunav, Croatian Dunav, Ukrainian Danube, Latin Danubius, Danuvius, other Greek Ίστρος) is the second the length of the river in Europe (after the Volga), the "international" river, the most long river within the territory of the European Union.
Length - 2960 km.

The river takes its source in Germany, in the mountains of the Black Forest. Further, the Danube flows or is the border of ten states: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine; passing through such capitals of Central and Eastern Europe as Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade. In addition to these ten countries, the Danube drainage basin covers the territories of another nine European states. The Danube flows into the Black Sea, forming a delta in Romania and Ukraine; the Romanian part of which is included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The Russian name of the river goes back to Praslav. *Dunajь, which was borrowed through the Gothic. *Dōnawi from Celtic. Danuvius. The Polish scientist Jan Rozvadovsky suggested that the Slavs originally called the Dnieper with the word *Dunajь (as can be heard in Ukrainian and Belarusian folklore). K. Moshinsky supported this assumption, believing that when part of the Slavs migrated to the vicinity of the Danube, whose name was originally borrowed as *Dunavъ / *Dunavь, the name was transferred from the previously known river. Moshinsky was objected to by T. Ler-Splavinsky, who pointed out that the word "Danube" and its derivatives are called a dozen rivers and streams in the territory of the distribution of Slavic languages, in addition, this word functions as an appellative in Polish and Ukrainian dialects. In this regard, Ler-Splavinsky restores the common noun *dunajь "big water" for the Proto-Slavic language, which comes from Proto-I.e. *dhouna. The conclusions of Lera-Splavinsky were ignored in the work of V. N. Toporov and O. N. Trubachev “Linguistic analysis of the hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper”, deriving the hydronym “Dunaets”, found in the Slavic lands from the name of the Danube, for which this work was criticized by Z. Golomb .

Schlogen, Germany Danube River

Historical information
The earliest reliable information about the Danube is contained in the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC), who wrote in the second book of the History that the Istr River (the ancient Greek name for the Danube) begins in the country of the Celts and flows, crossing Europe in the middle (II :33). The river Istr flows into the Evksinsky Pont (Black Sea) with seven branches. The modern name was given by the Celts, who lived here in the first half of the first millennium BC. In 105, Emperor Trajan threw the first a stone bridge across the Danube.

Physiography
Source

The river originates in the Black Forest mountains (Baden-Württemberg, Germany), where near the city of Donaueschingen at an altitude of 678 m above sea level, the mountain streams Breg (length 48 km) and Brigach (length 43 km) merge.

source of the Danube

Near the walls of the local castle-palace in the city there is an architecturally designed spring, which is presented as the source of the Danube.

Underground part of the Danube
Near Immendingen, about 30 kilometers from its source, the Danube disappears underground and most of its water seeps through cracks, crevices and funnels in limestone rocks that make up the river valley.

12 km south of the place where the Danube disappears, the Aahsky key beats out of the ground - the most powerful in Germany. The amount of water flowing out reaches 8.5 t/s. The river Radolfzeller Aach (eng. Radolfzeller Aach) originates from it, flows into Lake Constance, from where the Rhine flows.

In 1877, for the first time, it was possible to prove that the Aakh key is fed by the underground waters of the Danube: 100 centners of rock salt were dissolved in the upper reaches of the Danube, not far from the cracks absorbing it, and after 55 hours this salt appeared in the waters of the Aakh. During the flood period, the underground stream passes this way in just 20 hours. It became clear that the water flows underground in huge channels until it breaks out in the Aah spring from the Wimzen cave. The elevation difference between the place where the Danube disappears and the source of the Aah is 185 m.

Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany River Danube

Direction
On its way, the Danube changes direction several times. First, it flows through the mountainous region of Germany to the southeast, and then at around 2747 km (the mileage of the river is measured from the extreme point of the girl in the direction of the source) changes direction to the northeast. This direction is maintained until the city of Regensburg (2379 km), where the northernmost point of the river flow is located (49 ° 03 "N).
Near Regensburg, the Danube turns southeast, then crosses the Vienna Basin, and for more than 600 km flows through the Middle Danube Plain.
Having laid a channel through the mountain ranges of the Southern Carpathians along the Iron Gates gorge, it flows through the Lower Danube lowland to the Black Sea (more than 900 km).

The southernmost point of the river is located near the town of Svitshot (Bulgaria) - 43 ° 38 "N.

Danube Delta
In the lower reaches, the Danube, branching out, creates a large swampy delta, cut through by a dense network of branches and lakes, 75 km long from west to east and 65 km wide from north to south. The top of the delta is located near Cape Izmailsky Chatal, 80 km from the mouth, where the main channel of the Danube first splits into the Kiliya and Tulchinsky branches. After 17 kilometers downstream, the Tulchinskoye is divided into the Georgievskoye arm and the Sulinskoye arm, which flow into the Black Sea separately. The Kiliya arm within the borders of the territory of Ukraine creates the so-called Kiliya delta, which is the most fleeting part of the Danube Delta. Most of the Danube Delta is covered with floodplains - this is the second largest array of this landscape in Europe (second only to floodplains in the Volga Delta). The Danube Biosphere Reserve is located in the Danube Delta.

Sleeves
The Danube has numerous branches, which sometimes significantly (10 or more kilometers) depart from the main stream. The longest on the right bank are the branches of the Moshonsky or Gyorsky Danube (turn - 1854 km, girl - 1794 km) and Dunerya-Veke (237 and 169 km); on the left bank - the Small Danube (source - 1868 km, flows into the Vah), the Shorokshar Danube (1642 and 1586 km), Borcha (371 and 248 km).

tributaries
The Danube basin has an asymmetric shape. The smaller one is its right-bank part (44% of the catchment area). But on the right bank of the tributaries of the Danube, a hydrographic grid of the basin is formed. The tributaries are unevenly distributed: most of them are located in the foothills of the Alps and the Carpathians, there are almost none in the territory of the Hungarian (Middle Danube) lowland.
The tributaries of the Danube, which originate in the mountains, have a mountainous character in the upper reaches. Leaving the plain, they acquire the typical features of lowland rivers and are navigable for a long distance.

Danube, Germany

The largest island on the Danube is Zhitny Ostrov, located in Slovakia.

Other characteristics
At a distance in a straight line between the source (Donaueschingen) and the extreme point of the delta (mark "0 km" in the Ukrainian part of the delta below the city of Vilkovo on the island of Ankudinov) at 1642 km, the meandering coefficient of the river is 1.71. The average decline of the Danube is 24.4 cm per 1 km.

Parts of the Danube (Danube) According to the complex of physical and geographical characteristics, the Danube is divided into the following three parts:
Upper (992 km) - from the source to the village of Genyu;
Medium (860 km) - from Genyu to the city of Drobeta-Turnu Severin;
Nizhny (931 km) - from the city of Turnu Severin to the confluence with the Black Sea.

Serbia, Golubac fortress Danube river

Mode
The hydrological regime of the Danube is determined by three phases: spring flood, summer-autumn floods, autumn-winter low water. The annual amplitude of water level fluctuations ranges from 4.5–5.5 m (near Reni) to 6–8 m (near Budapest). Ordinary annual water discharges upstream, currents are 420 m3/s, in the middle reaches - 1900 m3/s, at the mouth - 6430 m3/s. The maximum water discharge in the lower reaches is 20 thousand m3/s, the minimum is 1800 m3/s. The annual flow is about 123 km3 per year. The Danube freezes over only in cold winters for 1.5-2 months.

Temperatures
The temperature regime in the Danube basin is mainly determined by the nature of the circulation of air masses and the features of the terrain. The air temperature varies over a wide range. In winter, the average temperature of the coldest month - January - ranges from -1 to -5 ° C. In summer, the average temperature of the warmest month - July - in the upper part of the basin is from +16 to +18 °C, in the central part of the basin - from +17 to +22 °C, in the lower part - from +22 to +26 °C.

The Danube basin is influenced by air masses penetrating from the Atlantic, Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

In the Upper Danube region, the prevailing winds in the cold season are the winds of the western and northwestern directions. On the Middle Danube, east and southeast winds prevail, on the Lower Danube - north and northeast.

In the warm season, the direction of the prevailing winds is more constant and mainly falls on the western quarters. On the Middle and Lower Danube, the “koshava” wind (of the bora type) is very dangerous for navigation - it has a western and north-western direction and reaches 20-30 m / s in some places.

In the coastal part of the Danube Delta, surge winds cause great danger to coastal settlements (strong wind from the sea slows down the flow of the river, and sometimes even turns the flow back). With such a wind, rapid flooding of coastal areas can occur.

Precipitation
The distribution of precipitation across the basin is uneven. The average annual precipitation in the plains is 400-600 mm, in the Carpathians - 800-1200 mm, in the Alps - 1800-2500 mm, and sometimes more. The least amount of precipitation falls in the Danube Delta. There are years when there is no precipitation from early March to mid-November. Snow cover in the Danube basin is not established, except for mountain parts basin of the Upper Danube.

A characteristic feature of the ice regime of the Danube is the extreme instability of the ice phases and the different times of their onset. In some years, ice events may be absent along the entire length of the river. On the Lower Danube, a stable ice cover in the main channel appears once every 5-7 years.

Schönbühel Castle, Austria Danube River

Political geography

The Danube flows from source to mouth through the territory or border of 10 states (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine).
Also, the Danube basin fully or partially covers the territories of 19 states of Central and Southern Europe (except for the 10 above - Switzerland, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia).
For all the Danubian countries, the Danube in some areas is a natural state border with neighboring countries. Within the boundaries of the territories selected countries the length of the Danube is from 1075 km (Romania) to 0.2 km (Moldova).

Budapest, Hungary Danube River

Major cities on the Danube
There are dozens of large cities on the banks of the Danube, including the capitals of four European countries: Austria - Vienna (1597 thousand inhabitants), Serbia - Belgrade (1670 thousand), Hungary - Budapest (1702 thousand), Slovakia - Bratislava (425 thousand people). ).
On the tributary of the Isar is the capital of Bavaria (the federal state of Germany) Munich (1365 thousand).

Regensburg - Germany
Vienna, Linz - Austria
Vukovar — Croatia
Bratislava - Slovakia
Budapest, Hungary
Belgrade — Serbia
Rousse, Vidin – Bulgaria
Braila, Galați – Romania
Izmail - Ukraine

Shipping
The way from the North Sea to the Black Sea
After the construction of the Main-Danube Canal in Germany in 1992, the river became part of the trans-European waterway from Rotterdam on the North Sea to Sulin on the Black Sea (3500 km) (via the Rhine, of which the Main is a tributary). Volume transportation on the Danube reached 100 million tons (1987).
In the lower reaches of the Danube there is a Romanian navigable canal (Danube-Black Sea Canal), and in the river delta there is a Ukrainian navigable canal "Danube-Black Sea". Both canals provide passage for large ships from the Danube to the Black Sea.
Navigation on the Danube continues for most of the year and is interrupted only for 1-2 months. In especially warm winters it doesn't stop all year round.
In 1999, navigation was hampered by the destruction of three bridges as a result of the bombing of Belgrade by NATO aircraft. The cleanup of the channel was completed in 2002.

There are 19 locks on the river, the difference between the upper and lower pools can be from 5 to 34 meters.

Belgrade, Serbia Danube River

Legal status of shipping
IN international law the order of navigation on the Danube (the so-called "Danube regime") was first established by the Austro-Turkish treaty of 1616. The Paris Treaty of 1856 declared the Danube an international river. In the same year, the European Danube Commission was formed (for 2 years, but the period of existence of which was repeatedly extended). After the First World War, the Danube regime was established in 1921, which was signed by many European states, except for the USSR. These two commissions - the International Danube and the European Danube - regulated shipping and various issues related to it.

On August 18, 1948, the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia signed a new convention on the regime of the Danube. According to it, navigation on the Danube should be open to civil and merchant ships of all states. At the same time, warships of non-Danubian states do not have the right to sail on the Danube, and warships of the Danube states can pass outside the waters of their state only with the consent of the parties concerned. Danube river

catchment

The total area of ​​the Danube drainage basin is 817 thousand km². Its extreme points are 42°12" and 50°05" N. w., 8°10" and 29°40" e. e. The length of the basin from west to east is 1690 km, the width is 820 km.

The Danube basin borders in the north on the watersheds of the rivers Weser, Elbe, Odra, Vistula, in the northeast - the Dniester, in the west and northwest - the Rhine. To the south of the Danube basin are the basins of the small rivers of the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Seas.
The Danube is fed by rainwater, melted snow and glaciers of the Alps and Carpathians, as well as groundwater.
Despite the difficult regime of water levels, periods of flood, low water and winter period are clearly traced on the Danube.

In the upper Danube, the highest water level occurs at the beginning of summer (June), the lowest - in winter (December-February). In the section of the middle Danube, before the confluence of large tributaries (Drava, Tisa and especially Sava), the water level regime remains close to the upper Danube, but the amplitude of fluctuations is somewhat smoothed.
In the lower Danube, the highest water level occurs during the flood period (April-May), the lowest occurs in autumn (September-October).
The annual flow of the Danube is about 210 km³ of water.
Water consumption - 6400 m³ / s. Danube river

GEOGRAPHY OF THE DANUBE RIVER
Length of the Danube: 2,860 kilometers.
Area of ​​the Danube Basin: 817,000 square kilometers.

Where the Danube flows: On the eastern slope of the Black Forest (Germany), the Breg stream originates, which, connecting in one channel with another stream, Brigach, takes the name Danube. The source of the Breg lies 7 km to the north-north-west of Furtwangen, at an altitude of 1000 meters above the sea surface, between the mountains of Rossek and Brigbrine, and the Brigach begins almost 9 kilometers to the east, 4 kilometers to the south-west of St. George, flows through Billingen, which lies only 5 km from the sources of the Neckar, and under the city of Donaueschingen, taking in a stream flowing from the castle garden of this city and previously considered the source of the Danube, joins in one channel with the Breg stream. The area where these three streams merge is a swampy plain. From here the river takes the name Danube and flows first to the SE, keeping the direction of Brega, but soon changes it to the SE, which it keeps to the city of Regensourg, where it again turns to the SE and flows in this direction to the city of Passau. This city is generally considered to be the terminus of the Upper Danube; from here to the Iron Gates goes the Middle Danube, and from the Iron Gates to the mouth of the Lower Danube.

city ​​of Passau, Germany

In the upper reaches, the Danube goes first at southern foot Swabian Jura to the city of Donauwert, from here to Regensburg - at the foot of the Frankish Jura. Flowing through this mountainous area, the Danube is very fast with a large slope, especially near Ulm, at an altitude of 469 meters. To Ulm, along the right bank of the river, mountains covered with forests go, although in some places there are swampy and marshy small plains, and from Ulm, under which the Danube, having taken in its first alpine tributary Iller, becomes navigable (with a width of 78 meters), the right bank its becomes completely flat, while the left remains mountainous and rocky.

The Middle Danube near Passau receives the Inn tributary, which almost doubles its water mass, and, leaving the elevated plains of Bavaria, enters the valley, and its right bank lies in Austrian possessions. Already beyond Passau, a gorge begins, stretching for about 120 kilometers to Krems and formed on the one hand by the southern spurs of the Bohemian Forest, Greinerwald and Mangartswald, and on the other by the northern spurs of the Alps (Sauvald). Here the bed of the Danube is littered with stones and cluttered with islands that form the famous Strudel rapids.
The water is divided into frantic streams around the island, on which the ancient Werfenstein castle stands in ruins, and rapidly rushes in the general channel, narrowing here to only 146 meters. In the past, a mass of water hit the large detached Gausstein rock and formed a terrible whirlpool, but in 1854 the rock was blown up and the path through the rapids ceased to be difficult. Not far from here, the Danube emerges from the mountain gorges, overflows with a wide tablecloth and is divided into many branches, between which are low-lying islands, the so-called "Auen", covered with dense grass and overgrown with willows, aspens and poplars. The bed of the river forks in the form of many bends, some of which are convenient for navigation, others are cluttered with sandy shoals and gradually turn into swamps. Encumbered once again by parts of the Vienna Forest interrupted by him, the Danube enters the Lower Austrian Plain, representing the bottom of the ancient lake through which it once flowed. Here, along a recently corrected channel, it flows near the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna.
South part this half has long been densely populated; factory and factory industry is in full swing everywhere, but the country along the northern bank of the river, towards Moravia, Marchfeld, only in relatively recent times was covered with meadows and fields: in the Middle Ages, the German emperors deliberately left these places uninhabited and uncultivated in order to be able to defend without great labor their limits from the invading wild hordes. From here, at the confluence of the Morava River, the Danube leaves the Austrian-German soil and enters the borders of Hungary, where it is replaced by the last spurs of the Alps and the foothills of the Lesser Carpathians. Passing under Devin (130 m above sea level) and Pressburg "Hungarian Gate", the Danube enters the Hungarian plain and spreads widely in its sloping banks.
Here it takes on the character of a real large river with changeable, indefinite banks, except for those places where the mountains that have come close to the water make the river narrow again for a while. The Danube washes away the banks here, forcing large masses of earth to collapse, which are then deposited in the channel or near the other bank in the form of numerous shallows, sandy arrows and spits, and even entire islands and islets. All this is overgrown with reeds, shrubs and trees. The banks of the river are densely populated. Of the many islands, two large islands lying below Pressburg stand out here: Big and Small Schutty.
The first of them (87 kilometers long and about 25 kilometers wide) is called Tsalokez among its inhabitants, and Zhitny Ostrov among the Slovaks and has about 200 villages and villages. The Small Schutt is about 48 kilometers long. Divided into three channels, the Danube again unites into one channel under the city of Komorn and flows eastward to the city of Gran, again breaking through the “Visegrad Passage” between the protrusions of the Bakonsky Forest protruding to the south and the foothills of the Novograd Carpathians from the north Under the mountains. Weizen D. turns rather sharply to the south and, having passed the Hungarian capital of Budapest, where its height above sea level is 110 meters, enters the large Hungarian plain-lowland (Alfeld).
This area has a steppe character: a huge low-lying plain, in which no significant elevations can be seen in a large area, strikes the observer with its uniformity both in the nature of the area, and in the vegetable kingdom, and in the animal kingdom, even a person here in almost the entire space is the same. the very same. In Alfeld, the Danube overflows widely and slowly flows between two sloping banks, in places forming real swamps and swamps; otherwise, in a wide channel, islands rise from the land caused by river waters, or next to the main channel there are numerous branches separated from it, which subsequently merge again with the main river. The most significant of the islands on the Danube in this place is St. Andrew (between Weizen, Buda), then Csepel, Shar and Margita near Mogach. Near Buda the depth is 8-12 meters, the width of the Danube here is about 1000 meters, and between Benek and Feldvar 570-1260 meters. Below the confluence of the Drava near Vukovar, the Danube is pushed back to the ESE by the Sirmian Hills (Fruska Gora, see) and flows to Petervardein (82 m) and Slankamen. Here it receives the largest of its tributaries, the second artery of the Alfeld, r. Tissu, and flows in the direction of the city of Zemlin, under which its width reaches 1560 m, depth up to 14 m; from here it goes to Belgrade and receives its main right tributary, the Sava; from this point it forms the border between Hungary and Serbia as far as Orsova, or Rshava.
Near the town of Baziash, the mountains squeezed the river into a gorge for about 130 km to the town of Kladova. This gorge is called Klissura, or the Iron Gates. In this gorge, the height of the Danube above sea level changes from 37.3 to 11 m; with such a strong slope, the river acquires an extraordinary swiftness of flow and is compressed on both sides to an incredible degree (from 1900 meters its width in the Iron Gates reaches 100 meters, and in one place even up to 60 meters); its depth here from 20 meters reaches 50 m and even 75 meters, and the fall of the water, equaling 4 stm near Baziash. at 1 km, here in the Iron Gates it reaches 540 m; to these difficulties for navigation is added the fact that the bottom of the river in many places is dotted with underwater rocks and stones. Danube river

The Lower Danube begins at the exit of the river from the Iron Gates. Here it again enters a more even terrain, flows with many bends, first to the south, and then, gradually turning to the east in an unbent semicircle, past the cities. Vidin, Nikopol, Sistov, Ruschuk, Salistria with a width of 700-1000 meters. and with a slight fall, it passes along the edge of the Great Wallachian Plain among a wide swampy lowland, cut by numerous branches, with huge puddles of stagnant water. At Chernavoda, separated from the sea by only 50 km, the Danube, having met the flat elevation of Dobruja, suddenly changes its east. direction and, bypassing it, turns through Girshova and Brailov to S.
In this space, it is divided into a whole labyrinth of sleeves. Only after the confluence of the Seret, the Danube again takes its main eastern direction and receives the Prut from the left side. At a distance of about 7 km above Tulci, the Danube forms its own delta. This is a huge (about 2558 square kilometers) swampy plain, overgrown with high reeds (up to 3 meters high), in which herds of buffaloes and flocks of various water birds find shelter and wolves roam. The extreme branches of this delta lie one from the other at a distance of 89 km.
Of these, the left (northern) one, divided into several parts and overflowing like a lake, passing through Izmail, flows into the Black Sea with the Kiliya arm, passing 101 km and bringing with it 63% of all Danube water into the sea. The right sleeve beyond Tulcea is divided into Sulinsky (middle) and St. George (southern). The Sulina arm, after the second division, runs for another 90 km, keeping almost straight to B, and flows into the Black Sea, bringing it only 7.4% of the Danube water. It is the most navigable of the branches of the Danube; its depth reaches 16 meters, on the shallows it is about 5 meters, and before flowing into the sea there is also a significant shallow.
This depth was achieved thanks to the extensive hydraulic engineering work carried out after the Crimean War. The branch of St. George stretches after the second division for a space of 110 kilometers, has a depth of 6 to 11 meters and before flowing into the sea - a large shallow covered with water only one and a half meters.

Smederevo fortress, Serbia Danube river

The method of feeding the Danube: the main role in feeding the river is played by water from the melting of mountain snows; great importance have water from abundant rainfall and groundwater.

Tributaries of the Danube: Iller (right), Lech (right), Isar (right), Inn (right), Ens (right), Morava (left), Raba (right), Vag (left), Gron (left), Ipel ( left), Drava (right), Tisa (left), Sava (right), Morava (right), Iskar (right), Siret (left), Prut (left).

Inhabitants of the Danube: sturgeon (beluga, sturgeon, stellate sturgeon) and herring (herring, shad), catfish, carp, asp, bream, silver bream, fish, pike perch, sterlet, roach, rudd, tench, crucian carp, perch, podust, gudgeon, bleak , ide, barbel, sabrefish, pike, burbot and some others.

Freezing of the Danube: High water passes in the warm part of the year; it starts at the end of February and continues until August. The most shallow Danube in September and October. Freezing is not observed annually (in January-February).

DANUBE RIVER IN AUSTRIA
The trip through the magnificent Austrian part of the Danube Valley begins in the picturesque German town of Passau on the German-Austrian border. There the great Danube joins the rivers Inn and Ilts.

Unique landscapes open up to the eye in the bends of the Danube near the town of Schlögen. Driving past the Wilhering monastery, you find yourself in the capital of Upper Austria, the city of Linz. Here the route deviates briefly from the Danube towards the city of St. Florian with its imposing monastery, and then to the ancient Roman city of Enns and on to Steyr with its magnificent Old Town.

Through the fishing town of Grein, the road leads to the Wachau region, one of the most beautiful sections of the route, which has received the status of a UNESCO world cultural heritage. The local landscape is dominated by vineyards, apricot orchards, picturesque towns and villages are scattered everywhere. Between them, as if on a throne, majestic monasteries and ancient ruins rise above the Danube.

The monasteries of Melk and Göttwei make an indelible impression. The monastery in Melk is a pearl of Austrian baroque architecture, ceremonial halls, a library, frescoes, a collection of art treasures.

The Göttweig Monastery is a beautiful baroque monastery, within which there is a museum, an imperial route, concerts, great views to the Danube and the Wachau region, opportunities for spiritual pursuits. From Göttweig to Melk - part of the Austrian section of the Way of St. James.

Further along the Danube, the towns of Spitz, Weissenkirchen and Dürnstein amaze with picturesque beauty, the latter with its famous ancient ruins. In the city of Klosterneuburg, northwest of Vienna, you can see a majestic monastery. After that, the route will take you to the capital of Austria, the city of Vienna, with its many attractions.

Leaving the city and continuing your journey along the Danube to the east, you get to the Roman site of Petronel Carnuntum, where you can make a trip to the ancient Romans in the archaeological park. During exciting events such as gladiator fights, history comes alive and there are summer camps.
The Danube then leads you to the town of Hainburg on the edge of the Donauauen National Park. Here the Danube leaves the territory of Austria.

Donauauen National Park is located on the outskirts of Vienna and is one of the last large undeveloped river valleys in Central Europe, which provides an ideal habitat for numerous species of plants and animals. The picturesque, idyllic landscapes of the valley can be admired on foot, by bike or by boat.
In the Donauauen National Park, there is the Orth Palace on the Danube with a multimedia permanent exhibition "DonAUräume" (Danubian Spaces), an observation tower and a "Castle Island" site with typical animals and plants of the river valley.

The Danube, sung by Johann Strauss, appears to us as a blue full-flowing river, calmly carrying its waters among the spurs of the Vienna Woods. The mountains closely surround the Danube, on its quiet and deserted banks "silence reigns, as, for example, in the Kazan gorge, where only the sound of the river is heard. But it is far from being calm and blue throughout its entire length. Sometimes the Danube, compressed by the steep rocky mountains, angrily throws waves towards the ships, which hardly overcome their pressure.

It is not customary to call the Danube a river on a ship: the Danube is the Danube, and the people employed on the Danube transport are not rivermen, but sailors. Navigation on it is foreign, like on the sea, and the depths here are not great like a river: they allow sea ships to climb high up the Danube. And there is no need to talk about the difficulties of swimming, because sometimes the Danube wakes up so gloomy and preoccupied that even the sun's rays do not please him

On the marble of Roman altars, the god Danube was depicted as an angry and frowning old man in long robes fluttering in a harsh wind. It is not difficult to imagine how earnestly they prayed to such a god! But more than once people tried to argue with him: thousands of slaves, at the behest of Caesar, carved depressions in the channel, in the backwaters and where smaller, in order to build canals convenient for ships.

Hungarian Vajdahuned Castle
The waves of the Danube know many languages: they hear the speeches of Hungarians and Czechs, Bulgarians and Romanians, the peoples of Yugoslavia and many others. Donau and Duna, Dunav and Dunerya - each nation calls this the second largest river in Europe in its own way. To those who know how to listen to its waves, the Danube will tell a lot.

The border river did not promise calm, and on its banks, few people built a solid home for a long time. But from time immemorial, fortresses and military camps have grown here, first Roman, then Turkish and Austrian. Then they were swept away by history, leaving battlements and towers erected by people on the vast expanses of mountain shores.

In 513 BC, the Persian king Darius I Gistapus undertook a campaign against the inhabitants of the Danubian region, but, having lost many of his soldiers, shamefully fled. Not far from the modern village of Novoselskoye, located behind Lake Yaltsukh, there is a mound on which, according to legend, was the headquarters of King Darius. Here he received ambassadors from the Scythian leader Idanfirs, who gave him an ultimatum demanding to leave the Danubian steppes.

In 334 BC, Darius's attempt was repeated by the famous commander of antiquity Alexander the Great. He crossed to the left bank of the Danube, ravaged the coastal settlements, but could not gain a foothold here and left with his army for the Balkans. And in Kiliya, in memory of his stay, he erected a monument to the god Zeus.

In the 1st century, the Roman emperor Tiberius built a road through the Cataract gorge on the right bank of the Danube, but it received important strategic importance later, when the emperor Trajan continued it further. At the entrance to Kazany, on a steep rocky wall, there is a well-preserved memorial plaque of Emperor Trajan (103).

One of the numerous fortified points of the Romans on the right bank of the Danube was the Yatrus fortress, written sources about which are scarce and very fragmentary. The earliest mention of it is found in the second half of the 2nd century and the first half of the 3rd century, when the fortress was under the command of the dux of the province of Second Moesia and it housed a garrison of shield-bearing cavalry. Subsequent events are unknown to historians, but in the 6th century Emperor Justinian "resumed the damaged parts of the so-called Yatrus and Tigas fortifications with a new construction site." In the 8th century, Yatrus was not mentioned in written sources, since it had already been destroyed by the Avars and, probably, the Slavs.

Subsequently, "Gorodishche" near the village of Krivina (so locals called the ruins of Yatrus) served as a quarry, from where they took stone for rural buildings and even for the construction of a pier in the city of Svishtov on the Danube. Most of all, the fortress walls, made of well-hewn squares, suffered the most. There were no gates in either the southwestern or southeastern wall, but during the excavations, a tombstone with relief images of family members (father, mother, son and daughter) and a Latin inscription was taken out of the southwestern wall. The marble head of a man also comes from the ruins of Yatous.

The most dangerous for navigation on the Danube is the entrance to the Cataracts - a section three kilometers long, the so-called "Iron Gates". This name is associated with the time when the Turks decided to close access to the Cataracts and blocked the channel of the hand in this place with iron chains. Here, near the Transylvanian Alps, the plain suddenly ends, and the Danube is forced to cut its way through the southern spurs of the mountains, forming its most magnificent gorge. Its banks suddenly rise to a height of 100 meters, and in the middle of the river a stone tooth sticks out above the breakers, similar to the remains of a split tower. In fact, this is the natural rock of Babakai, reminding ships to be on the lookout...

On sheer cliffs, on the opposite banks of the Danube, one can see the ruins of two fortresses that once blocked the entrance to the valley. The fortress of Golubac was built by the Serbian prince Brankovich, Laslovar - by King Zigmund, but over time, the Turks who captured them settled here. Golubac, which means “dovecote” in Russian, is one of the most beautiful and best-preserved fortresses of medieval Serbia. She is also known for the fact that poisonous flies lived in her caves, which are very dangerous for animals. An old legend tells that

in one of the fortresses lived a young, beautiful Turkish woman, who left her master and went over to the owner of the fortress on the opposite bank of the river. The enraged aga could not endure such deceit and resentment on the part of the harem concubine and calmed down only when the traitor was again in his hands. He chained her to the Babakai rock so that she, dying of hunger, would repent (“babakai” in Turkish means “to repent”). But the beautiful Turkish woman was released, and the jealous aga subsequently died in one of the battles with the Christians.

Right from the waters of the Danube, the island of Ada-Kale is born, as if created by a theater artist. Here the mosque rises above the vermilion tiles and above the apple thicket; and an alley that runs away from a mossy boat landing no one knows where; and dilapidated, willow-covered walls of an ancient fortress. 7 underground passages lead from it (one under the Danube), and the remains of the old casemates, in which children now play, have been preserved, so the fortress is not at all formidable, but more like a kind grandfather who only pretends to be angry.

The island of Ada-Kale is not at all fabulous, the Turks still live here - the peaceful descendants of the former conquerors: they live, work in a tobacco factory, fish and skillfully cook Turkish delight. Translated from Turkish, Ada-Kale means "island-fortress". The legend tells that

the first settlement was founded here by the wandering dervish Mishkin Baba. He was poor, walked in torn clothes and props, and he was rich only with kindness and affection.

to people. Yes, so rich that the sun shone in his eyes! Mishkin Baba searched all over the world for a place sheltered from malice, oppression and greed, and in the end he chose an island between: the deserted Danube banks.

Until 1912, the island of Ada-Kale belonged to Turkey, and now - to Romania, but whose water is here is difficult to determine, since the border between Romania and Yugoslavia passes here. On the Romanian side, the roofs of the city of Orshov are hidden behind the spurs of the mountains, in the vicinity of which Hercules lived, who washed after his exploits in the sacred waters of the Danube. On the Hungarian coast stands the small and quiet town of Mohacs, whose land is European history three times became the scene of bloody battles: twice with the Turkish Janissaries, and then with the Nazi invaders in the 20th century.

The wide Danube was divided into two branches by the gentle island of Szentendre, and it was difficult to find a place more convenient for the crossing. Therefore, the paths of different peoples crossed here, and therefore a trading settlement appeared here. On the southern outskirts of Szentendre, the ruins of the ancient Castra Constantia, the Roman border fortress, which bristled with arrows for a long time, have been preserved. In the 5th century, the fortress was destroyed by the Huns, and then the bend of the Danube passed from hand to hand - the Celts, Romans, Huns, Germans, Avars, Slavs, Hungarians ...

In 1009, even before the appearance of Buda and Pest, the Hungarian king Stephen I granted the village the name Szentendre, which has not changed since then. In 1146, by royal decree, the village was elevated to the rank of a city, after 100 years, the Mongols besieged their horses near the Danube, and ashes remained on the site of Szentendre. Then the city was rebuilt, and it was no different from other Hungarian cities, and in the XFV century the first Serbian refugees came here...

The length of the Danube within Austria is 350 kilometers. The Austrians themselves say "" The Danube flows not only through our territory, but also through our history. " Castles and fortresses still stand on both banks of the river: Kreuzenstein - the former Roman fortress "Castellum Pergum"; Perzenbeug castle, which is mentioned in " Song of the Nibelungs"; castles Spielberg, Tillisburg and many others

Waves of history swept away many conquerors, destroyed many of their castles and fortresses. Everything passed, only the Danube remained - noisy and rumbling, murmuring and roaring. The Danube, which has long attracted to itself with its beauty and wildness, grandeur and treachery, the cold of its depths and the warm waters of the shallows...

DANUBE DELTA
“Paradise for birds”, “the newest land in Europe” are phrases that are often used when describing the Danube Delta.
A magical land where it seems that time has stopped in place. The vain world of modern civilizations remained somewhere there, at the mouth of the delta.
The Danube Delta, a real museum of nature, is the lowest and newest land in Romania. Thanks to its flora and fauna, it is unique in Europe. The Danube Delta was formed on the site where there was once a sea bay, later an estuary, then turns into a delta.

For 5,000 years, a small community of people, the people of the Danube Delta have lived in perfect harmony with the exceptional ecosystem of the delta, earning their livelihood from fishing, animal husbandry and the collection of reeds. Small, archaic villages are not affected by time, they have retained their original appearance. The villages are isolated, the only access to them is through the channels of the delta. The traveler can explore this natural sanctuary by boat, find peace and quiet, admire unique landscapes.

Danube Delta.
area and structure.

The Danube Delta is located in the east of Romania and in the southeast of Ukraine. The shape of the Danube Delta is similar to the classical letter of the Greek alphabet Δ "delta".
The area of ​​the Danube Delta is approximately 4170 km ha, of which 3445 km (82%) belong to Romania (in the county of Tulcea) and the remaining 18% to Ukraine. In terms of area, it ranks second in Europe, after the Volga River Delta (15,000 sq km), which flows into the Caspian Sea.

Before the place where the Danube flows into the Black Sea, the Danube Delta widens to 100 km long x 100 km wide, and continues into the sea, at a distance of 10-15 km.

The Danube Delta is the result of a meeting between the second longest European river, the Danube, and the Black Sea. As a result of this contact, on the basis of the deposition of sediment, sand and silt, the swampy soil of the Danube Delta was formed, and this process continues to this day. In some places, the Danube Delta is expanding at a rate of 120 meters per year.
The Danube is divided into 3 large branches, Chilia, Sulina and Sfintul Gheorghe, from which numerous branches also originate, winding water channels in labyrinths, feeding lakes with water or pouring back into the main branches and into the sea.
The most important lakes of the Danube Delta are located between the branches of Chilia and Razelmn: Tatanir, Furtuna, Matita, Babina, Dranov. Most big lake in the Danube Delta - Lake Dranov (27.1 sq km).
When the water level in the Danube is low, the branches of Chilia, Sulina and Sfintul Gheorghe transport 60%, 21% and 19% of the Danube water, and when the water level rises, 72%, 11% and 17% of the Danube water volume is obtained.

Climate and seasons in the Danube Delta
The climate here is maritime continental, the Danube Delta is the driest and sunniest part of Romania. In winter, the average temperature in the coldest month,
in January -10 ̊ C. In spring, the months of March-April are dry and cool, but sometimes during the day the temperature can already rise to 20-25 ̊ C. In May, the average temperature is +15. Summer in the delta is warm and dry. Autumn begins in October and ends in the second half of December. The second half of autumn is rainy.

Danube Delta, flora and fauna.
The constant presence of water certainly affects the plant world. The Danube Delta is famous for its rich plant and animal life.
Reed beds predominate, sometimes up to 6 meters high, reeds, forests, meadows.
The Danube Delta Reserve is a paradise for birds. In summer, 320 species of birds are found here, of which 166 constantly nest in the delta, and 159 species migrate from such remote places as the Arctic, Siberia, the Mediterranean and rest in the delta during flights, for example, the Siberian swan, flamingo with Valleys of the Nile and others. More than a million birds come here for wintering. Here there are rare species of birds that are on the verge of extinction: curly pelican, pink pelican, lesser cormorant, red-throated goose. The pelican colony is considered the largest in Europe.
In addition to birds, there are fox, wolf, wild boar, deer, hare, snakes.
In the Danube Delta there are 75 species of fish, of which 44 species are freshwater, the rest are migratory from the Black Sea. Unfortunately, intensive commercial fishing in recent years has resulted in Negative consequences and now the situation of fish resources is quite critical.

The population of the Danube Delta is about 18-20 thousand inhabitants, among them about 3-4 thousand Russian Old Believers Lipovians. 4 thousand inhabitants live in the port city of Sulina. The Danube Delta is a region of Romania with the lowest population density, with an average density of 5 inhabitants/sq km.
The Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The excursion to the Danube Delta can be started from the town of Tulcea. The distance from the main city of the Romanian coast of Constanta to the city of Tulcea is 131 km.

FISH IN THE DANUBE RIVER
Huge rocks that rise in the middle of the river bed give rise to almost irresistible whirlpools and waterfalls. One of these giants, the barrier rock, reaches 250 m in width and almost 2 km in length. Here the Danube rushes with incredible speed and twists. The width of the channel here is only 108 m.

The Danube basin, especially its delta, is inhabited by almost all types of European fish. Among them are the small silver bleak (Alburnus alburnus); during the breeding season, these fish stray into large schools, females glue small clusters of eggs to any pitfall or plant they like.

Bream (Abramis brama), a large carp fish with a hunchbacked back and a small mouth adapted to eat small invertebrates that live on the silty bottom. Long-whiskered minnow (Gobio urano-scopus) is also a representative of the carp family; unlike the other three species of minnows living here, it lives only in the Danube basin.

Common carp (Cyprinus carpio), a very large fish with a dark gray or brown back, golden flanks, and a yellow belly. Before the Great Glaciation, this fish was widespread throughout Europe; when a glacier advanced from the north, it retreated south. Later, when the glacier receded, carp recovered almost everywhere in the Black Sea and the Danube basin.

Now it is cultivated in many other reservoirs. In the Danube, carp migrates little, only during spring floods does it go to the floodplain to lay eggs. When the water subsides, juveniles and adults return back to the river. These are stubborn and prolific fish, each laying one and a half million eggs at a time.

One of the most interesting fish of the Danube is the common or European catfish (Siluris glanis); some giant catfish reach 5 m in length and weigh 300 kg. The way of life of this calm, slow-moving fish has been little studied, despite the fact that it has always been willingly hunted. The catfish has a dark gray, scaleless body with a large wide head, a huge bulldog mouth, adorned with two long mustaches hanging from the upper jaw, and four more antennae from the lower jaw.

The eyes are tiny. Most important organs The senses are concentrated in the catfish in the antennae and in the lateral line of the body. It has a ridiculously small dorsal fin, resembling a small flag, but a very long anal fin reaching the base of a laterally flattened tail. There is nothing surprising in the fact that he was sometimes mistaken for a giant broad-headed eel.

Catfish build rather primitive nests, erecting a semblance of a wall around them. As soon as the eggs are laid and fertilized, the male stands guard and continues to guard his nest even when the tadpole-like fry hatch. When the juvenile is ready for independent life, it leaves the nest and the male's duties end there. Catfish are a desirable prey for fishermen.

The Danube and its delta are home to some sturgeon species, such as the sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus), reaching a maximum length of 100 cm and a weight of 15 kg or more. The subspecies of the Russian sturgeon (A guldenstaedti cochlicus) is distributed up to Bratislava; another species, the stellate sturgeon (A. stellatus), migrates as far as Tokay and Komaron in Hungary.

Bratislava, Slovakia

The Danube is also inhabited by such a widespread species as the Atlantic sturgeon (A. sturio). It reaches here 3.5 m in length and 200 kg in weight.
The most striking Danube fish and the largest freshwater fish in Eastern Europe is the beluga (Huso huso), which is said to be 8.5 m long and weigh 1300 kg! Once upon a time, this giant fish traveled all over the river and, as soon as the ice began to drift, it left the delta and went upstream to Bavaria.

Today, the beluga population has declined, and it does not rise above the Iron Gate in Romania. In one large female there can be more than 100 kg of caviar. Sturgeons are a very ancient group of species that arose 200 million years ago. Their appearance corresponds to their antiquity. An elongated armored body with bone plates sticking out along the back and sides distinguishes them from any other fish.

Scales are present only on the upper side of the tail. Even the internal structure of sturgeons is primitive: the skeleton is cartilaginous, there is no real spinal column. Their intestines are equipped with a spiral valve, which is still only in lobe-finned fish from North America and in sharks. Without a doubt, the Danube was an exceptionally favorable environment for these largest fish of inland waters.

However, re-relov in the middle of the XVIII century. led to a sharp decrease in the population. Today giant European sturgeons are preserved in the Danube Delta and other major rivers flowing into the Black Sea, only thanks to strict protective measures.

JOURNEY ON THE DANUBE RIVER
He is called the king among the rivers. It is similar to the Amazon and flows through half of the European continent. The Danube is home to many species of animals. Next to it grow the oldest forests in Europe. For thousands of years, the life-giving river has attracted people. The Danube crosses 10 countries and passes through four vibrant capitals: Belgrade, Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. This is truly an international river.

You won't find this Danube cruise in any travel guide. river cruises, since this tour is not connected by one river vessel, but has an educational meaning. And to learn about this river, you need to go a long way, visiting each country separately, through which the Danube flows.

The mighty river has a confusing origin. Officially, the Danube begins here between the river and the sea.

This old lighthouse in the port of Sulina is the zero mark of the Danube.

Unlike all other rivers in the world, the length of the Danube is measured from the mouth. Crossing half of Europe, the Danube is nearly 3,000 kilometers long. It crosses various territories and changes its appearance in accordance with the environment. Before reaching the virgin waters of the delta, it flows through the plains of Romania. At the "iron gates" of the Carpathians, he made caves in the Carpathian mountains. The Danube crosses the lowlands of Hungary and, near Budapest, abruptly changes direction, skirting the foothills of the Alps from the north. Its origins are hidden in the romantic Black Forest of Germany, the Black Forest. And every kilometer of the river is a 25th century culture of European civilization.

Alpine waters have turned the Danube into a wide river as it reaches the Austrian Wachau Valley, the most beautiful valley in the world. This region is famous for its vineyards, which owe to the mild ideal climate. Here, the cool, moist air of the shady forests going downstream collides with the dry, warm air rising up the plains.

The Wachau valley leads to the city inextricably linked with the great Danube - Vienna. This is the most major capital on the river, but the Danube itself is practically invisible from here. The river that flows through Vienna is the man-made Danube Canal. One of the symbols of the city is the Ferris wheel. Vienna is undeniably the musical capital of Europe. Here Johann Strauss composed the symbol long history Vienna, but only in Paris, which prefers everything extravagant, did he gain success. It is impossible to leave Vienna without visiting one of the taverns of Geunigen, where young wines are served. An atmosphere of spiritual familiarity reigns here. The sounds of the accordion remind everyone of the transience of life. Music is everywhere in Vienna.

Let's continue our cruise along the Danube. Just a few kilometers from the bustling center on the far outskirts of the city is a completely different world - the Danube Auen National Park. Here the Danube is as wild as the similar South American Amazon. In the national park you can find a wide variety of habitats for different species of animals.
On the Danube, small cruise ships intended for river routes regularly "dart". There is a single fast boat on the river that travels along the Danube between Vienna and Budapest. Many people enjoy this river walk. The journey by speedboat to the east takes 5 hours. The path goes along historical sites to the banks of the full-flowing Danube to the Slavic side.

The Great River has one unpleasant feature - due to the strong current, the waters of the Danube independently carry gravel, which plays an important role in the river's ecosystem. To combat this phenomenon, draggers are thrown, which annually take out more than 100 thousand tons of gravel from the lower stream and pour it upstream. The fight against the shallowing of the riverbed will never end. This is an endless work, but the life of the riverine forest depends on it.

Danube in Bratislava
After Bratislava, there is a barrier of concrete and steel that causes a lot of controversy. This is the Dobchik hydroelectric power plant. The construction of this huge structure destroyed miles of wetlands. Here the water is measured and separated. Water is also separated here for entertainment. But this is no longer a river, but simply waters distributed by artificial barriers. The water management project has completely changed the Danube. For sixty kilometers it flows in an unnaturally straight path towards Hungary.
The mighty Danube enters Budapest - its main pearl. He circled the two previous capitals, but in Budapest he passes in the heart. Here begins the East of Europe. On the embankment near Pest, there is an unusual memorial - a lot of shoes.
To some extent, the river divides, and to some extent it unites. This river separates not only Buda and Pest, but the whole country. This section is already 2000 years old, it has not disappeared to this day. The right and left banks look across the Danube at each other. The magnificent alliance of the river with Budapest is not inferior to the Parisian marriage with the Seine. Budapest is the only city in the world that meets the Danube with such grandeur and nobility. He seems to be admiring his reflection in the water, with ancient bridges and piers. Here you can visit the Turkish baths, playing chess right in the water, drinking coffee by the cool fountains. In this amazing city, an unknown writer is honored instead of an unknown soldier.
Further, the Danube River embarks on a lonely journey, crossing the vast Hungarian plain, bathed in the scorching summer sun and endless expanses. The river goes stubbornly south for exactly 200 km. This region is inhabited by free gypsies. soul mysterious people store villages that stretch along the river. The Danube crosses the third border, continuing through the breadbasket of Croatia. Then in Belgrade it merges with the Saba river and flows for another 300 km. This is a very flat area - like a pancake, the local people say that the highest mountain here is cabbage.
There is the Vukovar Museum-Hospital, in which everything is done as it was during the war - everywhere there are screens broadcasting documentary chronicles and videos, bandaged mannequins lying on bunks personifying the consequences of the bombing. New buildings look touching among the houses torn by shells. Vukovar is ready to reclaim its name as an elegant town with its beautiful galleries. There is also an unusual cinema located on a barge, giving screenings for both banks of the Danube.

Now the Danube rushes to the Carpathian mountains. With the course of history, he made his way through this mountain range and gorge, called the Iron Gates. Here the Danube seeps through high gorges. The cliffs rise 300 meters from the water, and the river is only 150 meters wide but 90 meters deep. For river navigation, this is considered the most difficult and dangerous area rivers. Twists, bends, rocks forming dangerous rapids, floating debris and rip currents. And fishermen at all times, throwing their nets into the Iron Gate Gorge, dream of catching the most valuable beluga fish in the world, reaching a length of 8 meters. On the proceeds from the sale of black caviar, a family can live for many years.

Below the surface of the water lie villages flooded after the construction of the Turnu Severin hydroelectric dam. From here to the Black Sea 900 km. Here the Danube separates three countries in its course: Romania - along the border of which it continues its journey, Serbia - which it leaves behind, and Bulgaria lying on the right. This is followed by Bulgaria and the city of Rousse, somewhat reminiscent of modern Europe. In these parts, you can admire the waters of the Danube, despite the pollution from factories.
After 2000 km of wandering on the water, we arrive in Tulcea. This is the last port on the river, as the Black Sea is only 70 km away.

Now the Danube flows wide and calmly through the plains of Romania until it reaches the Black Sea. There the river divides into three main currents and many branches, forming a delta. It is here that the sand and gravel washed away from the Alps ends its journey.
Delta is a strange dreamlike world. Here the river seems to have lost ground. Many species of flora and fauna, the calls of countless flocks of birds and many smells. There is also a nature reserve inhabited by pelicans and other birds. This unique place and a paradise for birds, fish and people. On the border with Ukraine, the Danube is gradually disappearing.

The Danube naturally draws borders between countries, dividing and at the same time uniting them. He introduces us to Schubert and the gypsies, mountains and open spaces, but this river does not belong to anyone.

Esztergom, Hungary, Saint Adalbert's Basilica

Slavic mythology. Dunay Ivanovich. BIRTH OF THE DANUBE

Dunay Ivanovich is a Russian epic hero. IN Ancient Rus' the word "Danube" was not only the name of the river (and even the designation of the river in general), but also male name. In the epic about the hero, as we will see, the name of the river and the name are connected together. In the image of Dunay Ivanovich, mythological and historical features coexist quite organically. Several epics about him allow, with a certain degree of conventionality, to restore the main episodes of his life. Unlike the heroes who came to Kiev from Russian cities and began to serve here, Danube Ivanovich once left for Lithuania and served the king there in various court positions: “departures” of service people to neighboring lands were common in feudal times. Then the Danube finds himself in a clean saw, and here he meets Dobrynya.

Bylina:
In the capital city in Kyiv,
What is the affectionate sir-Prince Vladimir
And there was feasting, an honorable feast,
There was a dining-honorable table,
There were many princes and boyars at the feast
And Russian mighty heroes.
And it will be a day at half a day,
Princely table in a half-table,
Vladimir-prince cheered up,
Walks along the bright grid,
Combing black curls
He said, gentle sir Prince Vladimir
This is the word:
"Goy axis you, princes and boyars
And mighty heroes!
All of you in Kyiv are married,
Only I, Prince Vladimir, go single,
And I go single, I walk unmarried.
And who knows my opponent,
He knows the opponent, the beautiful girl, -
How would that girl be a stately camp,
I would be stately and perfect in mind,
Her white face is like white snow,
And the buttocks, as it were, the color of poppies,
And black eyebrows like sables,
And the clear eyes, as it were, of a falcon.
And here the greater is buried for the less,
From the lesser to him, the prince, there is no answer.
From that was the prince's table,
From that bench heroic
Ivan Gostiny son speaks,
He jumped to the heroic place,
He shouted, Ivan, in a loud voice:
“Goy, thou art gentle sir, Prince Vladimir!
Bless before you the word to say,
And one word is safe,
And even without that, the fires are great.
Have I, Ivan, been to the Golden Horde?
At the formidable Tsar Etmanuil Etmanuilovich
And I saw his two daughters in the house:
The first daughter is Nastasya the princess,
And the other is Afrosinya the queen;
Afrosinya sits in a high tower,
Behind thirty damask locks,
And the violent winds will not swirl on her,
And the red sun does not bake the face;
And even then, sir, the girl is stately,
Stately and perfect in mind,
White face like white snow
And the buttocks are like poppies,
Black eyebrows, like sables,
Clear eyes like a hawk.
Send you, sir, the Danube to woo.
Vladimir, the capital prince of Kyiv,
Ordered to pour a glass of green wine
One and a half buckets
Present to Ivan Gostiny
For those good words of his
What the betrothed told him.
He calls, Prince Vladimir,
Danube Ivanovich to his bedroom
And he began to speak to him in words:
Serve me a service I’ll miss -
Go, Danube, to the Golden Horde
To the terrible king Etmanuil Etmanuilovich
About a good deed - about marriage
On his beloved on his daughter,
On honest Afrosinya the queen.
Take my golden treasury
Take three hundred stallions
And mighty heroes.
Enchant the Danube with green wine
One and a half buckets
Turium horn honey sweet
Half a third bucket.
He drinks, Danube, a glass of green wine
And turium horn sweet honey.
The womb of a hero flared up,
And mighty shoulders diverged
Like the young Danube Ivanovich,
He says, Danube, such is the word:
“And the sun is gentle, you are Prince Vladimir!
I do not need your gold treasury,
No need for three hundred stallions
And do not need mighty heroes, -
And perhaps only one young man for me,
How young Ekima Ivanovich,
Who serves Alyoshka Popovich.
Vladimir the capital prince of Kyiv
Immediately he himself brought Yekim with his hands:
"Here you are, on the Danube, there will be a couple of barrels."
And soon the Danube is equipped,
Soon the heroes are repairing the trip
From the capital city of Kyiv
To the distant horde of the golden land.
And the daring good fellows went,
And they go for a week in a row,
And they go for another week,
And they will be in the Golden Horde
At the formidable king Etmanuil Etmayauilovich;
In the middle of the royal court
Well done galloping from good horses,
They tied good horses to an oak pole,
We went to the white-stone chamber.
Here the Danube says this is the word:
“Goy thou, king in the Golden Horde!
Do you have in the chambers of white stone
There is no saving image,
Someone to pray to you
And there is nothing to bow to you for.”
The king of the Golden Horde speaks here,
And he himself, the king, grins:
“Goy, son of the Danube Ivanovich!
Ali you came to me
To serve in the old way and still?”
Danube son Ivanovich answers him:
“Goy thou art, king in the Golden Horde!
And I came to you
Not in the old way to serve and not as before, -
I came about a good deed for you,
About a good deed - about wooing:
On your, sir, beloved, on your daughter,
On honest Afrosinya the queen,
Prince Vladimir wants to marry.
And here the king was in trouble,
And tears black curls on the head
And throws on the brick floor,
And it says this word:
“Goy thou art, Danube son Ivanovich!
If I had not served faithfully before,
I would have ordered them to be planted in deep cellars
And would starve to death
For those words of yours for idle.
Here the Danube became in trouble,
His heroic heart flared up,
He took out his sharp saber,
He spoke this word:
“Goy thou, king of the Golden Horde!
If you hadn’t been in your house,
Didn't eat bread and salt
I would cut off a violent head on the shoulders.
Then the king roared out of tune in a loud voice,
The greyhound dogs came on chains, -
And he wants to play the Danube alive
Those Medelyan males,
Danube son Ivanovich screams here:
What have you become and what are you looking at?
The greyhounds came in on chains,
The king wants to pit us alive with you.
Ekim son Ivanovich rushed,
He rushed into the wide yard,
And those murza-ulanovya
Ekim will not be allowed to the good of the horse,
Heavy to his club,
And heavy clubs, copper casts, -
They were three thousand pounds.
The iron club did not hit him,
That he got the axis of that cart,
And Ekim began to wave,
He nailed the strength of seven thousand Murza-ulanovya,
Five hundred he nailed the Medelian males.
Then the king shouted in a loud voice:
“Goy thou, Danube Ivanovich!
Take away your faithful servant,
Leave me strength even for Semena,
And take my beloved daughter,
Afrosinya the queen."
He appeased his faithful servant,
Came to the high tower
Where Afrosinya sits in a high chamber,
Behind thirty damask locks.
Violent winds will not swirl on her,
The red sun does not bake the face.
The doors of the chambers were iron,
And the punching hooks on damask steel are zlachen.
The Danube spoke here is the word:
“Though the leg will break, but expose the doors!”
Kicks at iron doors,
He broke the damask hooks,
All here the chambers staggered.
The girl rushes, frightened,
As if all mad
He wants to kiss the Danube on the mouth.
Danube son Ivanovich will speak:
“Goy thou, Afrosinya the princess!
And a mummers kus - but not for the betrothed to eat.
I don't kiss you on sugary lips,
And God has mercy on you, beautiful girl, -
You will get to Prince Vladimir.
I took her by the right hand,
Led from the chambers to a wide courtyard,
And they want to sit on good horses, -
The king caught himself in the Golden Horde,
He himself said this:
“Goy thou art, Danube Ivanovich!
Perhaps wait for Murza-ulanovya.
And the king sends his murza-ulanovyas
Carry gold treasury across the Danube.
And those murza-ulanovya
Thirty Orda carts poured
Gold and silver and pitched earth,
And besides that, the stones are semi-precious.
Soon the Danube is being equipped,
And they went to the city to Kyiv.
And they've been going for a week now,
And they are already going another,
And then they bring the gold treasury.
And the Danube ran over a wandering trail,
Not having reached Kyiv for a hundred miles,
He himself began to punish Ekima:
“Goy thou, Ekim son Ivanovich!
Take you Afrosinya the princess
To the capital city to Kyiv,
To affectionate Prince Vladimir
Honest, laudatory and joyful -
We would have something to boast
Grand Duke in Kyiv.
And he himself, the Danube, went on that trail
Fresh, wandering.
And it's been going for another day,
On the fourth day the trail reached
On those in the meadows on the amusing ones,
Where did the affectionate Prince Vladimir go
Always on the hunt.
There is a white tent in the meadows,
In that tent, a red-haired maiden rests,
Is that Nastasya the queen?
Young Danube he was quick-witted,
He pulled out a tight bow from the palushka,
From the quiver he took out a red-hot arrow,
And he pulled out the bow behind his ear,
I'll shoot an arrow,
Which arrow of seven quarters.
He will whip, the Danube, on oak cheese,
But the bowstring at the tight bow sang,
And mother earth will tremble
From that heroic blow,
An arrow hit the cracked oak cheese,
I broke it into knife-edges,
The girl rushed from the white tent, as if mad,
And the Danube was young, he was quick-witted,
He jumped, the Danube, from the goodness of the horse,
He will stick a spear in the damp earth,
He tied the horse to the sharp spear,
And he is ready to fight with the girl, -
He hit the girl on the cheek,
And he kicked the girl in the guzzle, -
The female sex lives from that swelling,
He knocked the girl off her frisky legs,
He pulled out the damask chingalische,
And he wants to cut open his white breasts.
Vtapora the girl prayed:
“Goy thou art thou, daring good fellow!
Do not prick me, girl, to death,
I asked the father-sir, -
Who will beat me in an open field,
For that, I, a girl, should marry.
And mulberry Danube son Ivanovich
I rejoiced at her word,
He thinks to himself with his mind:
“I served, Danube, in seven hordes,
In seven hordes to seven kings,
But the red maiden could not survive,
None I found in an open field
The betrothed-resistor.
Here they got engaged.
The circle of the willow bush got married.
And soon she gave the order to gather
And he took the whole harness from the girl -
Kuyak and armor with chain mail.
He ordered the girl to dress up
In a simple white coat.
And we went to the city to Kyiv.
Only Stolny Vladimir of Kyiv
Vtapory rides from the crown of gold,
And the prince came to his princely court,
And they cleaned up in bright grids,
They sat down at the cleared tables.
And young Dunay Ivanovich
Came to the cathedral church,
To those priests and deacons,
He came to the cathedral church,
Asking for honest mercy
That bishop of the cathedral -
Marry that red girl.
The cathedral priests were glad to that,
In those years, the oath was not known,
Danube Ivanovich was married,
The wedding gave the Danube five hundred rubles
And he went to Prince Vladimir.
And it will be with the prince in a wide courtyard,
And they jumped off good horses with a young wife,
And he spoke this word:
"Report to Prince Vladimir
Not about what to go to bright gridni, -
About the fact that the young princess has nothing to wear,
There is only one women's dress and there is a white cap.
And vtapory Vladimir-prince he was quick-witted,
He knows who to send
He sent Churil Plenkovich
Give out women's colored dresses.
And they gave out soyans of crispy damask
On that newlywed princess,
On Nastasya the queen,
And the price of that soyang is one hundred thousand.
And they equipped the newlywed princess,
They took them to the chambers of the princes,
In those grids are bright,
They sat at the cleaned tables,
For sugary foods and copper drinks,
Two sisters sat down at the same table.
And young Danube son Ivanovich
He married Prince Vladimir
Yes, he got married right away.
In the same table, he became a canteen.
And they lived for a long time
Prince Vladimir
At the sun Seslavevich
It was a fun party
Then the drunken Danube boasted:
“What is not against me in Kyiv is such an archer -
From a thick bow, shoot according to signs.
What will the young princess Apraksevna say:
“What are you, my beloved son-in-law,
Young Danube son Ivanovich!
That there is no de in Kyiv such an archer,
As my dear sister, Nastasya the Queen.”
Here the Danube became in trouble,
They threw lots
Who first shoots from a tight bow,
And got to shoot his young wife
Nastasya the queen,
And the Danube got a gold ring on its head.
Measured out a place for a whole thousand miles,
Keeps the Danube at the head of a gold ring,
Nastasya pulled out a red-hot arrow,
Sang de bowstring at the tight bow,
knocked a gold ring off my head
With that red-hot arrow.
Princes and boyars rushed about here,
We spotted a hardened arrow, -
That on those feathers lies that gold ring.
Vtapory Danube became in mind
His young wife.
Princess Apraksevna began to persuade him:
“Oh, you are a goy, my beloved son-in-law,
Young Danube son Ivanovich!
It's a joke, after all."
Yes, his young wife also said:
"Let's leave de shoot until another day,
There is a mighty hero in my womb.
You can't shoot with the first arrow,
And you shoot the other one,
And you will hit me with a third arrow.
Vtapory princes and boyars
And all mighty heroes are strong
He, the young Danube, was persuaded.
Vtapory Danube perked up
And he shot at the omen for a whole mile
In a gold ring
Began to stand young wife.
And vtapory his young wife
I bowed to him
And kill before him:
"Goy thou art thou, my dear darling,
Young Danube son Ivanovich!
Leave the joke for three days
Like not for me
But for his unborn son.
Tomorrow I will give birth to you a hero,
That there will be no opponent for him.
That is why the Danube did not steal,
Became his young wife
Nastasya the Queen
On the mark with a golden ring
And they ordered to keep the ring on the violent head.
Shot the Danube for a whole mile from a tight bow, -
And he did not shoot the first arrow,
Shot another arrow
And the third arrow hit her.
Running down the Danube to his young wife,
He pulled out the damask chingalische,
Soon he ripped open her white breasts, -
Jumped out of the womb, well done,
He himself says this:
“Goy thou, my dear sir!
As if he gave me a period of three hours,
And I would be in the world
Jumping and half a day in the seven sevens of you.
And here the young Danube son Ivanovich became sad,
He poked himself with a chingalisch in his white chest,
In a rage, he threw himself into the fast river, -
Because the Danube River is reputed to be fast,
Its mouth fell into the blue sea.
And then the old, then the deed.

________________________________________________________________________________________

SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:
Team Nomads
Danube // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.
Small Soviet encyclopedia / ed. V. Vvedensky. - M., 1959. - T. 3. - S. 741. - 1277 p.
Kravchuk P. A. Records of nature. - L .: Erudite, 1993. - 216 p. — 60,000 copies. — ISBN 5-7707-2044-1.
Countries of the Danube River Basin. International Commission for the protection of the Danube River.
Danube Delta
Fasmer M. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. — Progress. - M., 1964-1973. - T. 1. - S. 552-553.
Rozwadowski J. Studia nad nazwami wód słowiańskich. - Kraków: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 1948. - P. 251.
Moszyński K. Pierwotny zasiąg języka prasłowiańskiego. - Wrocław - Kraków: Zakład narodowy imienia Ossolińskich - Wydawnictwo PAN, 1957. - P. 153.
Lehr-Spławiński T. O pochodzeniu i praojczyźnie Słowian. - Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Zachodniego, 1946. - S. 73-75.
Trubachev O.N. Works on etymology. - M .: Manuscript monuments of Ancient Rus', 2009. - V. 4. - S. 317. - ISBN 978-5-9551-0324-2.
Gołąb Z. O pochodzeniu Słowian w świetl faktów językowych. - Krakow: Universitas, 2004. - P. 213-215. — ISBN 83-242-0528-4.
Springs of Germany: Aachquelle
Danube Commission. General information about the Danube.
Danube travel

. Water flow length, carrying its waters through the lands of Central and Eastern Europe, equal to 2872 km. The area of ​​the water basin is 817 thousand square meters. km. The fall of water from source to mouth is 678 meters. The river bed crosses or is the border of 10 states: Romania (29% of the basin area), Hungary (11.6%), Serbia (10.2%), Austria (10%), Germany (7%), Bulgaria (5. 9%), Slovakia (5.9%), Croatia (4.4%), Ukraine (3.8%) and Moldova (1.6%). If we take all the tributaries flowing into the river, then 9 more states are added, which account for 10.6%.

From source to mouth

Source

The water flow originates in the Black Forest mountain range. It is located in the southwestern part of Germany. The small German town of Donaueschingen (population 21,000) is located in these places. On the outskirts of the city, at an altitude of 678 meters above sea level, 2 mountain streams merge together: Breg and Brigah. It is they who unite into a rivulet, which gradually turns into one of the most important water arteries in Europe.

Upper, middle and lower reaches

The river is conditionally divided into upper, middle and lower reaches. The upper one is considered from the source to Vienna. This is a real mountain river. It flows in a narrow valley between the Alps and the Bohemian Massif, which is characterized by steep slopes. To the city of Ulm, the width of the water flow is 20-80 meters. Downstream, the channel expands and reaches a width of 100-300 meters. The flow velocity reaches 2.8 m/sec. In many places, the channel is fenced and straightened by dams.

The middle course is considered from Vienna to the gorge, called the Iron Gates. In this section, the channel runs along the Middle Danube Plain. The river valley is wide and varies from 5 to 20 km. The riverbed is quite winding and branched. The flow velocity is 0.7-1.1 m/sec. In some places, the water flow breaks through the ridges and forms valleys. In such places, it narrows to 150 meters, and the depth increases to 20 meters. In the Kazan Gorge, the maximum depth reaches 70 meters.

The lower course crosses the Lower Danube Plain. It is considered from the Iron Gate gorge to the mouth. In this place, the Danube River is flat. The wide floodplain valley, the width of which reaches 10-20 km, branches into channels and branches. The width of the water flow reaches 2 km, the depth is 5-7 meters at a current speed of 1 m / s.

mouth

At the mouth, the river forms a delta, which in its area is second only to that of the Volga. Its area is 4150 sq. km. Of these, 3.5 thousand square meters. km are located on the territory of Romania, and the rest belongs to Ukraine. By its nature, the delta is swampy and indented with arms. There are 3 main sleeves or girls. These are Kiliyskoye, Georgievskoye and the main navigable - Sulinskoye. The delta is 75 km long and 65 km wide. Each arm creates its own deltas and flows into the Black Sea separately.

The Danube River on the map

Sleeves and tributaries

The river is characterized by branches. Some of them depart from the main water flow for more than 10 km. The longest are considered the Moson sleeve, Dunerya-Veke, the Small Danube, Borcha and Shoroksharsky. As for the tributaries, there are 300 of them. Of these, 34 are navigable.

It should be noted that the water flow basin is asymmetric. Its right-bank part accounts for 44%, and the right-bank part - 56%. Most of the tributaries are located in the mountains, and there are very few of them on the flat landscape. The tributaries are mostly navigable. Of these, one can name Iller, Isar, Morava, Drava, Tisa, Prut, Siret and Hron.

Cities

Many European cities are located on the banks of the mighty water stream. Four of them are capitals. This is Vienna, the capital of Austria. Belgrade is the capital of Serbia. Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and Budapest is the capital of Hungary. Of the German cities can be called Regensburg in Bavaria. It stands at the confluence of the Regen and Danube tributaries. In Bulgaria, this is the city of Ruse, it is considered the 5th largest in the country.

Danube in Hungary

Shipping

Shipping is carried out all year round. In cold winters, it stops for a couple of months. More than 100 million tons of transport cargo is transported along the river per year. In 1992, the Main-Danube Canal was built in Bavaria. He connected the Danube with the Rhine through the Main River, and the water flow became part of the waterway from the Black Sea to the North. In the lower reaches there are Romanian and Ukrainian shipping channels. According to them large ships from the river to the Black Sea.

Feeding the river

Food is rain, snow, glacial and ground. Flood and low water regimes are traced. The maximum water level is recorded in June, the minimum in the winter months - December, January, February. In the lower reaches, the maximum water level is observed during the flood period. These are the months of April and May. The smallest is recorded in the autumn months - September and October. The annual flow is 210 cubic meters. km. Water consumption is 6.4 thousand cubic meters. m/sec.

The Danube River is the most important transport artery in Europe. It is of great economic importance for most countries and provides water to a large number of cities. Without this water flow, life in a vast region would simply stop..

Alexander Arsentiev

Danube (Bulgarian Dunav, German Donau, Greek Ister, in Hungarian Duna, lat. Danuvius or Danubius, in Romanian Dunre, in Serbian and Croatian Dunav, in Slovak Dunaj) is the second longest river in Europe (after the Volga).
Historical information
The earliest reliable information about the Danube is contained in the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC), who wrote in the second book of the History that the Istr River (the ancient Greek name for the Danube) begins in the country of the Celts and flows, crossing Europe in the middle. The river Istr flows into the Evksinsky Pont (Black Sea) with seven branches. The modern name of the river was given by the Celts, who lived here in the first half of the first millennium BC. e. The river takes its name Danuvius (fast water) from the Celtic words danu (fast) and vius (water).
Physiography
Source

The river originates in the Black Forest mountains (Baden-Württemberg, Germany), where near the city of Donaueschingen at an altitude of 678 m above sea level, the mountain streams Brege (48 km long) and Brigach (43 km long) merge.
Direction

On its way, the Danube changes direction several times. First, it flows through the mountainous region of Germany to the southeast, and then at around 2747 km (the mileage of the river is measured from the extreme point of the girl in the direction of the source) changes direction to the northeast. This direction is maintained until the city of Regensburg (2379 km), where the highest point of the river's flow is located (49 ° 03 "north latitude). Near Regensburg, the Danube turns southeast, then crosses the Vienna Basin, and further than 600 km flows along The middle Danube lowland. Having laid a channel through the mountain ranges of the Southern Carpathians along the Iron Gates gorge, it flows through the Lower Danube lowland to the Black Sea (more than 900 km).
Delta

In the lower reaches, the Danube, branching out, creates a large swampy delta cut through by a dense network of branches and lakes, 75 km long from west to east and 65 km wide from north to south. The top of the delta is located near Cape Izmailsky Chatal, 80 km from the mouth, where the main channel of the Danube first splits into the Kiliya and Tulchinskoye. After 17 kilometers downstream, the Tulchinskoye arm is divided into Georgievskoye and Sulinskoye, which flow into the Black Sea separately. The Kiliya arm within the borders of the territory of Ukraine creates the so-called Kiliya delta, which is the most fleeting part of the Danube Delta. Most of the Danube Delta is covered with floodplains - this is the second largest array of this landscape in Europe (second only to floodplains in the Volga Delta).
Sleeves

The Danube has numerous branches, which sometimes significantly (10 or more kilometers) depart from the main stream. The longest on the right bank are the branches of the Moshonsky or Dyorsky Danube (turn - 1854 km, girl - 1794 km) and Dunerya-Veke (237 and 169 km); on the left bank - the Small Danube (source - 1868 km, flows into the Vah), the Shorokshar Danube (1642 and 1586 km), Borcha (371 and 248 km).
tributaries

The Danube basin has an asymmetric shape. The smaller one is its right-bank part (44% of the catchment area). But on the right bank there are the most full-flowing tributaries, with which 2/3 of the water enters the Danube.

About 120 tributaries of the Danube form the hydrographic grid of the basin. The tributaries are unevenly distributed: most of them are located in the foothills of the Alps and the Carpathians, there are almost none on the territory of the Hungarian (Middle Danube) lowland.

The tributaries of the Danube, which originate in the mountains, have a mountainous character in the upper reaches. Entering the plain, they acquire the typical features of lowland rivers and are navigable for a long distance.

The tributaries that have a significant impact on the water regime of the Danube are shown in the table.

Other characteristics

At a distance in a straight line between the source (Donaueschingen) and the extreme point of the delta (mark "0 km" in the Ukrainian part of the delta below the city of Vilkovo on the island of Ankudinov) at 1642 km, the meandering coefficient of the river is 1.71. The average decline of the Danube is 24.4 cm per 1 km. The Danube is the second river in Europe, second only to the Volga.
Parts of the Danube

According to the complex of physical and geographical characteristics, the Danube is divided into the following three parts: Upper (992 km) - from the source to the village of Genya;
Medium (860 km) - from Genyu to the city of Turnu Severin;
Nizhny (931 km) - from the city of Turnu Severin to the confluence with the Black Sea.

Political geography
The Danube flows from source to mouth through the territory or along the border of 10 states (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine).

Also, the Danube basin fully or partially covers the territories of 17 states of Central and Southern Europe (except for the 10 above - Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, Poland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

For all the Danube countries, the Danube in some areas is a natural state border with neighboring countries. Within the boundaries of the territories of individual countries, the length of the Danube ranges from 1075 km (Romania) to 0.2 km (Moldova).
Major cities on the Danube
Dozens of large cities are located on the banks of the Danube, including the capitals of four European countries: Austria - Vienna (1597 thousand inhabitants), Serbia - Belgrade (1168 thousand), Hungary - Budapest (2016 thousand), Slovakia - Bratislava (425 thousand .). On the tributary of the Isar is the capital of Bavaria, the federal state of Germany (Munich, 1250 thousand). Regensburg - Germany
Vienna, Austria
Linz - Austria
Bratislava - Slovakia
Budapest, Hungary
Belgrade - Serbia
Rousse - Bulgaria
Braila - Romania

Shipping
After the construction of the Rhine-Danube Canal in Germany in 1992, the river became part of the trans-European waterway from Rotterdam on the North Sea to Sulin on the Black Sea (3500 km). The volume of transport on the Danube reached 100 million tons (1987).

Navigation on the Danube continues for most of the year and is only interrupted for 1 - 2 months. In especially warm winters, it does not stop all year round.

In 1999, navigation was hampered by the destruction of three bridges as a result of the bombing of Belgrade by NATO aircraft. The riverbed cleanup was completed in 2002.
catchment
The total catchment area of ​​the Danube is 817 thousand km2. Its extreme points are 42°12" and 50°05" N. latitude, 8°10" and 29°40" east. e. The length of the basin from west to east is 1690 km, the width is 820 km.

The Danube basin borders in the north on the watersheds of the rivers Weser, Elbe, Oder, Vistula, in the northeast - the Dniester, in the west and northwest - the Rhine. To the south of the Danube basin are the basins of the small rivers of the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Seas.

The Danube is fed by rainwater, melted snow and glaciers of the Alps and Carpathians, groundwater.

Despite the difficult regime of water levels, the Danube clearly shows periods of high water, low water and winter. In the upper Danube, the highest water level occurs at the beginning of summer (June), the lowest - in winter (December-February). In the section of the middle Danube, before the confluence of large tributaries (Drava, Tisa and especially Sava), the water level regime remains close to the upper Danube, but the amplitude of fluctuations is somewhat smoothed. In the lower Danube, the highest water level occurs during the flood period (April-May), the lowest occurs in autumn (September-October).

The annual flow of the Danube is about 210 km of water. The Danube also has a tributary of the Osm from Slovenia.

Wikipedia

Holidays are not only for people, but also for cities and even for rivers. So, on June 29, thirteen states celebrate the International Day of the Danube - the second longest European river. Today we will tell you about the countries that stand on the banks of the blue Danube and what you can see in them?

So, how is the holiday of the Danube and the rivers flowing into it? At this time, interesting festivals, creative meetings, scientific conferences, art exhibitions and environmental events are held everywhere. The first time this holiday began to be celebrated in 2004, and timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Danube Convention. And although the purpose of this event is to protect this amazing European river, you have a great opportunity to visit one of the wonderful countries located on the banks of this river.

Austria. Summer is a great time to visit Lower Austria. The Wachau Valley, with its quiet and romantic landscapes, is distinguished by the special charm of the Austrian land, by the way, it is under the protection of UNESCO. It is worth driving away from the capital of Austria - only seventy kilometers, and you can already admire the special terraces open to all mountain winds, on which the famous Wachau Rieslings are grown. You have a wonderful opportunity to see the local vineyards and appreciate the wines prepared here. In addition, this region is rich in medieval castles-museum. You can also take a great boat trip along the Austrian towns on the banks of the Danube. This ship runs between Melk and Krems several times a day, here guests on board will be offered to taste local wine. Upon reaching the Wachau, you will receive unique chance observe architecture in three classical styles at once: the majestic Gothic altar in Mayer, which is very close to Melk, the beautiful baroque Benedictine Abbey of 976 in Melk and Schallaburg - recognized as the most beautiful Renaissance castle in Northern Austria. And yet, you just need to get into the ruins of the Kuenring castle, built in the thirteenth century in Aggstein and the Durnstein fortress, where the English king Richard the First Lionheart lived as a prisoner for a long time. Take your kids to the town of Spitz, where the interesting Maritime Museum is located, or delight them with a trip to the toy exhibition in Schalloburg. Adults, on the other hand, will have a great time in the numerous cozy taverns and restaurants at the castle-hotels of the Wachau with a glass of excellent local wine.

Slovakia. In the predilections of the Slovaks, everything is mixed up: their Catholic faith is from the Poles, but they appreciate beer and music like real Austrians, pour a lot of paprika into their favorite goulash like true Hungarians, they have fun like Czechs, but swear like Ukrainians. These are the Poles living on the banks of the Danube. A separate word must be said about their delightful country - Slovakia. This is a fairy tale country where preserved the purest lakes, many hot healing springs, there are untouched reserved dense forests, mountains - majestic and picturesque, without signs of civilization: factories, garbage dumps, and to our delight, there are a lot of ancient castles and impregnable fortresses. You can appreciate these majestic natural beauties and great creations of human hands by being in one of the six (and this is a lot for little Slovakia) national parks. Two of these parks are located in the Tatras and Mala Fatras. Here you can stay in a small hotel so that every day you can enjoy walking along mountain paths along routes specially laid out for tourists. But you shouldn’t worry about food either, as there are a lot of authentic cafes and restaurants where you will be happy to be treated to the famous Slovak goulash and drink plum brandy, but if you don’t have the strength to get home, they will easily leave you to spend the night. You can entertain yourself here for every taste and budget. You can go down into mysterious caves or go up in a hot air balloon to see the stunningly beautiful surroundings from above. If you are more adventurous, then raft through the fast-flowing local river flows in a raft or kayak. Resting in the Tatras, you can take a bus or car to the glorious town of Cerveny Klastor, where you can go down the Danube raft with splashes and adrenaline. One of the most unique sights of Slovakia, a wonderful European country on the Danube, are well-preserved ancient wooden houses merchants of the seventeenth century and marvelous churches. To get to know this local marvel with carved roofs, carved attic window in the attic, you will have to climb up to the mountain villages of the Zilina region. The 19th century village museum "Oravskej Dediny" is located near Zuberek and is the most beautiful monument of rural architecture in the open air in Europe. Slovakia has perfectly preserved its ancient castles, in Slovak "grads" with interesting and intricate architecture on the outside and beautiful frescoes and a rich collection of weapons inside. In general, I must say a trip to Slovakia is the very first thing for a fan of eco-tourism.

Hungary. The swift waters of the Danube cross the very heart of Europe, or rather Hungary, a country of relaxation, a beautiful country, as both locals and seasoned tourists say, like a blue ribbon. Many people prefer to get their “health through water” here. The majestic waters of the Danube flowing here will restore peace and tranquility to your soul, you just have to admire its swift run from the high Buda hills, as if dipping their feet into the river. But Hungary is famous not only for its magnificent natural scenery, in its bowels lies real wealth - under 80% of the country's territory there are unique reserves of thermal and medicinal waters. Not in vain, even in ancient times they said about this country, standing on the Danube, that here in any place you can stick a staff into the ground so that a wonderful healing spring clogs from there. Now, Hungary has become - the healing baths of Europe. And the local bathing culture already has two thousand years behind it, as evidenced by well-preserved frescoes and mosaics, telling us that these waters were discovered by the ancient Romans. For many years they enjoyed these hot springs. And in the sixteenth century, the Turks, who seized dominance over this area, supported the tradition by building many of their baths here. In some of them, you can take a steam bath to this day, and then plunge into the healing pools with mineral water, as the Turkish pashas actually did. Today, the whole of Hungary is entangled in water health routes. And its capital, Budapest, was awarded the honorary title of a resort city back in 1934, at the International Swimming Congress.

Budapest is the only city in the world where there are one hundred and eighteen natural springs and artificial wells, from which seventy million liters are supplied daily. thermal water, having a temperature of twenty-one to seventy-eight degrees - a real warm sea in a day! This amount is more than enough for two dozen baths, numerous balneological clinics, swimming pools, wellness centers,. Amazing in its impact, beauty treatment courses in Budapest are perfectly combined with its rich excursion and tourist program. Heviz is famous for its medical tourism. This most famous Hungarian balneological resort- a first-class place for curing many diseases, thanks to its always warm thermal lake. Nearby there is another famous Lake Balaton, be sure to visit it. People go to the Hungarian Sarvar not only to take healing baths, but also to breathe healthy local air, saturated with water vapor and has a beneficial effect on lung function. Another Hungarian resort that gives its vacationers a lot of opportunities is Bük. The Bük hydropathic bath has six - thermal, four - medical, three - children's, three - specialized pools. Here you will be offered as a traditional treatment: massage, therapeutic mud, hydrotherapy, but also beauty courses, thalassotherapy, weight loss courses. Wellness tourism is most often chosen by young couples, medical tours by older people, spa courses by middle managers.

Germany. The magnificent German region, through which the Danube flows, is called the Swabian Alb, it is located south of Stuttgart. From the north, the Swabian Alb has sharp elevation changes and is limited by them, its deep abysses are overgrown with dense forests, there are interesting hiking trails. They start from the town of Donauwert and run along the picturesque Alba ledge, on some mountain peaks there are impregnable medieval castles, ancient fortresses and ancient ruins, open to the public. Along the way, you can meet enclosures with local wild animals, natural clean streams, healing springs, nature reserves and mysterious stalactite caves. From the south, the Alb plateau reaches the majestic Danube, which flows through Germany. Your walking route will take you to the beautiful Upper Danube Valley and end in the historic town of Tuttlingen.

Croatia, Serbia. The Danube also flows through the territories of Croatia and Serbia. But after the war and gaining independence between the two states, in these places, many Danube territories are still considered controversial: sites in the vicinity of the cities of Osijek, Sombor - here sites are controlled by Serbia, part. The same disputed area is the island of Sharengrad, located on the Danube near the border of Croatia and Serbia. Near this island is a Croatian village with the same name, and the state affiliation of Sharengrad is disputed by both countries to this day. Another painful controversial topic between these two countries is the island of Vukovar, which is in the bed of the Danube, twenty meters from the Serbian coast, but not far from the Croatian one, only two hundred and fifty meters.

The Danube flows through Bulgarian territory, occupying a small part of it between the cities of Tutrakan and Silistra. It is about thirty kilometers from Varna. Silistra is an ancient city on the right bank of the Danube and, in fact, the last city in Bulgaria before the border with Romania, along the Danube. It is worth coming here to get acquainted with this historical heritage of the country, founded here back in 169 by the Romans, namely their famous emperor Marcus Aurelius. At the time of its foundation, an impregnable fortress appeared here, today its ruins can be seen here and there. Recently, archaeologists have discovered ancient burials and ancient tombs here, their approximate dating is the fourth century. Silistra is one of the first towns in Bulgaria where Christianity spread from. Today it is a Bulgarian port city on the Danube, in addition, a major cultural and commercial center, connected by rail and road with the Bulgarian capital - Sofia and other major cities of the country. From here, ferries go across the Danube to Romania, mooring at the Romanian city of Calarasi.

Romania. , located in the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula and in the basin Lower Danube, has on its territory the longest hydrotechnical facility on this river - the sixty-four-kilometer navigable canal "Danube - Black Sea", built in 1984 near the city of Chornovoda and flowing into the Black Sea near the city of Constanta. And on May 20, 2013, another large bridge across the Danube was opened, connecting Bulgaria with Romania - the Kalafat-Vidin bridge. There is another bridge that tourists simply need, across Romanian territory, it is located between the settlements of Giurgiu and Ruse. Arriving in Romania, we recommend that you definitely visit the famous Danube Delta, which has other more poetic names - “paradise for birds”, “the newest land in Europe”. The edge here is actually magical. Sometimes it seems that time has stopped here, and the vain modern world has remained far away, at the mouth of the delta. The Danube Delta seems to be a real museum of nature, and its flora and fauna are unique throughout Europe. Previously, in the place where now the delta was a sea bay, then turned into an estuary, and later into a delta. For almost five thousand years, a very small community lived in these territories in harmony with nature, without violating the amazing ecosystem of the Danube Delta in any way: fishing, animal husbandry, collecting reeds. And to this day you can see old villages here, completely untouched by time and retaining their original appearance. After all, they are completely isolated, and the only access here is the channels of the river delta. Therefore, if you appreciate natural shelters untouched by civilization, and also want to find peace, tranquility and silence around, enjoy unique landscapes, then be sure to come to Romania to visit this great place on the Danube.

Moldova. Moldova, having no direct access to the sea, has access to the Danube River, the length of its coastline in this country is 950 meters. And the only port of Moldova on the Danube is Giurgiulesti, and even then, it is considered a territory in dispute with Ukraine, after the collapse of the USSR, when the borders between the republics were a rather arbitrary concept. But, today, it is Moldovan, and has a good location, right at the important intersection of international trade and transport routes - "Rhine-Main-Danube" this water corridor successfully connects it with the Black Sea, with fourteen more European countries and the North Sea. There is access to both the railroad and an extensive network of international roads.

Ukraine. On the Ukrainian territory, just below the city of Vilkovo, there is the youngest part of the Danube - the delta of the Kiliya branch, formed only four centuries ago, thanks to the Danube silt, in places of shallow sea waters. The place here is reserved, it is included in the Danube Biosphere Reserve of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Well, we answered the question: what countries are on the banks of the Danube? Crossing almost half of Europe, the Danube reads almost three thousand kilometers along its length. Flowing through different countries, it changes its appearance. The Danube is a haven for various species of animals, the oldest forests in Europe grow around it, there are different European capitals. We can safely say that the Danube is an international river, and in order to get to know it better, you will have to go a truly long way, visiting each Danubian country separately.

Danube river (ancient name Istr) on the way from the source in Germany to the mouth in the Black Sea flows through the territory of 10 countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine. The fate of many European states was decided on its banks.

Where does it flow: The Danube is formed by the confluence of the rivers Breg and Brigach, near the city of Dronaueschinger in Germany at an altitude of 678 m. It is the second largest river in Europe after the Volga. On its banks are located such European capitals as: Bratislava, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade. In Romania, it flows into the Black Sea forming a large delta. Even in ancient times, the Danube served as a transponder artery. And with the advent of shipping, its economic importance is constantly increasing. Through the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, completed in 1992, the Black Sea is connected to the North Sea.
Danube length: 2,860 kilometers.
Watershed area: 817,000 km. square.
Water consumption: 6400 m3/cm

delta area: 4152 km. square.

Danube tributaries: Iller, Lech, Isar, Inn, Ens, Morava, Slave, Vag, Gron, Ipel, Drava, Tisa, Sava, Morava, Iskar, Siret, Prut.
biological resources: beluga, sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, herring, catfish, carp, bream, pike perch, sterlet, rudd, crucian carp, perch, gudgeon, pike, burbot and some others. The intensive use of the river has disturbed the ecological balance and the number of fish in the Danube has decreased significantly. Other environmental problems can also be added to this: the drying up of floodplain forests, the extinction of vyds of animals that traditionally lived on the banks of the river.

Regime of the Danube River

Feeding method: The Danube has different power sources. The main source of water is melted snow from the mountains. Rainwater and groundwater also play an important role.
Freezing: The flood takes place in spring and summer, from late February to August. The least water in the Danube is in September October. The river does not freeze annually (in January-February).

Danube on the map:

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Video. A short film about the Danube:

Nature of the Danube, film: