Kura River

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Author: Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)
Map of the Kura river system in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey
Azarbaijan Map

Kura River is an east-flowing river south of the Greater Caucasus Mountains which drains the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus east into the Caspian Sea. It also drains the north side of the Lesser Caucasus while its main tributary, the Aras, drains the south side of those mountains. In some definitions of Europe, the Kura defines the borderline between Europe and Asia.[1]

Variants

Name

The name Kura is related either to Mingrelian kur 'water, river' or to an ancient Caucasian Albanian language term for 'reservoir'. The Georgian name of Kura is Mt'k'vari (in old Georgian Mt'k'uari), either from Georgian "good water" or a Georgianized form of Megrelian tkvar-ua "gnaw" (as in, "river that eats its way through the mountains").[3] The name Kura was adopted first by the Russians and later by European cartographers. In some definitions of Europe, the Kura defines the borderline between Europe and Asia.[4]

In the various regional languages, the river is known as: Armenian: Կուր, Azerbaijani: Kür, Georgian: მტკვარი, Mt’k’vari, Persian: Korr,[5] and Turkish: Kür.[6] In Greek and Latin sources of antiquity, the river was known as the Cyrus river; Ancient Greek: Κῦρος;[7][8] Latin: Cyrus, as attested by Strabo and Pliny respectively.[9] Bundahishn, a Zoroastrian source written in Book Pahlavi, refers to the river as Tord in Persian.[10]

The river should not be confused with the Kura river in Russia, a westward flowing tributary of the Malka in Stavropol Krai; the Kur near Kursk, Russia; Kur near Khabarovsk, also in Russia and Kor River, which is located in Fars Province, Iran.

Jat clans

Course

Starting in northeastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea at Neftçala. The total length of the river is 1,515 kilometres.

It rises in northeastern Turkey in a small valley in the Kars Upland[11] of the Lesser Caucasus. It flows west, then north and east past Ardahan, and crosses into Georgia. It arcs to the northwest, then into a canyon near Akhaltsikhe where it starts to run northeast in a gorge for about 75 kilometres, spilling out of the mountains near Khashuri. It then arcs east and starts to flow east-southeast for about 120 kilometres, past Gori, then near Mtskheta, flows south through a short canyon and along the west side of T'bilisi, the largest city in the region. The river flows steeply southeast past Rustavi and turns eastward at the confluence with the Khrami, crossing the Georgia-Azerbaijan border and flowing across grasslands into Shemkir reservoir and then Yenikend reservoir.[12]

The Kura then empties into Mingachevir reservoir, the largest body of water in Azerbaijan, formed by a dam near its namesake town at the southeastern end. The rivers Iori (also known as Qabirri) and Alazani formerly joined the Kura, but their mouths are now submerged under the lake. After leaving the dam the river meanders southeast where it meets its biggest tributary Tartarchay in Barda rayon and continues across a broad irrigated plain for several hundred kilometers, turning east near Lake Sarysu, and shortly after, receives the Aras, the largest tributary, at the city of Sabirabad. At the Aras confluence it makes a large arc to the north and then flows almost due south for about 60 kilometres, passing the west side of Shirvan National Park, before turning east and emptying into the Caspian Sea at Neftçala.[13]

Tributaries

The following rivers are tributaries of the Kura, from source to mouth:

History

People have inhabited the Caucasus region for thousands of years and first established agriculture in the Kura Valley over 4,500 years ago. Large, complex civilizations eventually grew up on the river, but by 1200 CE, most were reduced to ruin by natural disasters and foreign invaders. The increasing human use, and eventual damage, of the watershed's forests and grasslands, contributed to a rising intensity of floods through the 20th century. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union started building many dams and canals on the river. Previously navigable up to Tbilisi in Georgia, it is now much slower and shallower, as it has been harnessed by irrigation projects and hydroelectric power stations. The river is now moderately polluted by major industrial centers like Tbilisi and Rustavi in Georgia.

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[14] mentions 'Media and the Caspian Gates'.... After leaving these gates we find the nation of the Caspii, extending as far as the shores of the Caspian, a race which has given its name to these gates as well as to the sea: on the left there is a mountainous district. Turning back14 from this nation to the river Cyrus, the distance is said to be two hundred and twenty miles; but if we go from that river as far down as the Caspian Gates, the distance is seven hundreds15 miles. In the itineraries of Alexander the Great these gates were made the central or turning point in his expeditions; the distance from the Caspian Gates to the frontier of India being there set down as fifteen thousand six hundred and eighty16 stadia, to the city of Bactra,17 commonly called Zariaspa, three thousand seven hundred, and thence to the river Jaxartes18 five thousand stadia.

14 In a northern direction, along the western shores of the Caspian.

15 According to Hardouin, Eratosthenes, as quoted by Strabo, makes the distance 5060 stadia, or about 633 miles. He has, however, mistranslated the passage, which gives 5600 stadia, or 700 miles exactly, as stated by Pliny.

16 Or 1960 miles.

17 Bactra, Bactrum, or Bactrium, was one of the chief cities, if not the capital, of the province of Bactriana. It was one of the most ancient cities in the world, and the modern Balkh is generally supposed to occupy its site. Strabo, as well as Pliny, evidently considers that Bactra and Zareispa were the same place, while Appian distinguishes between the two, though he does not clearly state their relative positions.

18 The modern Syr-Daria, mentioned in c. 15. See p. 25.

References

  1. ↑ "Countries that exist wholly or partially within geographical Europe"
  2. ↑ परोपकारी, अप्रेल प्रथम 2019, s.n.13, p.6
  3. ↑ Pospelov, E.M. Geograficheskie nazvaniya mira (Moskva, 1998), p. 231.
  4. ↑ "Countries that exist wholly or partially within geographical Europe"
  5. ↑ Wordsworth, Paul (2021). "KURA RIVER". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition. Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.
  6. ↑ Wordsworth, Paul (2021). "KURA RIVER". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition. Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.
  7. ↑ Allen, William Edward David. A history of the Georgian people: from the beginning down to the Russian conquest in the nineteenth century, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971, p.8. ISBN 978-0-7100-6959-7
  8. ↑ Gachechiladze, Revaz. The New Georgia, TAMU Press, 1996, p.18. ISBN 978-0-89096-703-4
  9. ↑ Gachechiladze, Revaz. The New Georgia, TAMU Press, 1996, p.18. ISBN 978-0-89096-703-4
  10. ↑ Shapira, Dan (1999-01-01). "Pahlavi References To Armenia". Iran and the Caucasus. 3–4 (1): 143–146. doi:10.1163/157338499X00092. ISSN 1573-384X.
  11. ↑ "Azerbaijan: Geography, climate and population". AQUASTAT. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
  12. ↑ Megvinetukhutsest, Nutsa. Background Map of the Kura-Aras River Basin (PDF) (Map). Cartography by Trans-Boundary River Management Phase II for the Kura River basin—Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan. European Union.
  13. ↑ Megvinetukhutsest, Nutsa. Background Map of the Kura-Aras River Basin (PDF) (Map). Cartography by Trans-Boundary River Management Phase II for the Kura River basin—Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan. European Union.
  14. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 17
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