YENISEY RIVER

also spelled Yenisei, or Enisei, river of Asia, one of the longest rivers on the continent, flowing from south to north across central Russia. The headwaters of the Yenisey rise in the mountainous borderland of south-central Russia and Mongolia. Its main course flows northward along the eastern margin of the West Siberian Plain at the foot of the Central Siberian Plateau and empties into the icy waters of the Kara Sea, a section of the Arctic Ocean, through the Yenisey Gulf. The length of the river is calculated at 2,540 miles (4,090 km) if the Great Yenisey River in Tuva is reckoned as its source; but if the headwaters of the Selenga (Selenge) River, which rise in western Mongolia, are considered as its ultimate source, the length is 3,442 miles (5,540 km). Most of the 996,000 square miles (2,580,000 square km) of the Yenisey drainage basin stretches over the western sector of the Central Siberian Plateau, averaging between 1,640 and 2,300 feet (500 and 700 m) in elevation. The major tributaries to the Yenisey River system are the Abakan, Eloguy, and Turukhan rivers from the west and the Tuba, Kan, Angara, Stony (Podkamennaya) Tunguska, Lower (Nizhnyaya) Tunguska, and Kureyka rivers from the east. About half of the Yenisey's water comes from melting snow, more than a third from rainwater, and the remainder from groundwater. In terms of runoff, the Yenisey is the greatest river of Russia, with an average annual discharge of 699,200 cubic feet per second (19,800 cubic metres per second); violent floods occur in the spring. The climate of the northern portion of the river basin is subarctic, while that of the middle and southern portions is distinctly continental. Ice begins to form on the lower Yenisey early in October, and the entire river is frozen by mid-November. Thawing is not complete until late May or mid-June. Most of the river's basin is covered with taiga (dense, marshy forest), with Siberian spruce, fir, and cedar predominating in the south and larch farther north. Hunting, fishing, the breeding of reindeer, and fur farming are the chief occupations of the basin's more northerly peoples, and mining of coal, copper, and nickel is also important. Processing and manufacturing industries are pursued in the south. The hydroelectric potential of the Yenisey and its major tributary, the Angara, is estimated at 25,000,000 kilowatts. Approximately 1,900 miles (3,000 km) of the river, between Sayanogorsk (formerly Oznachennoye) and the Kara Sea, are navigable. Lumber is the main cargo transported through the chief ports along the river: Krasnoyarsk, Strelka, Yeniseysk, Igarka, Dudinka, and Ust-Port. Seagoing vessels can sail inland up the river to Igarka. The Ob and Yenisey river basins and their drainage networks. also spelled Yenisei, or Enisei, river of Asia, one of the longest rivers on the continent, flowing across central Russia. The world's sixth largest river in terms of discharge, the Yenisey (from the Evenk name Ioanesi, Great River), runs from south to north across the great expanse of central Siberia. It traverses a vast region of strikingly varied but generally old landscapes in which are found ancient peoples and customs as well as enormous programs of economic development. Additional reading The Yenisey River is described in broad geographic surveys of North Asia that provide information on physical features and on economic, social, and cultural conditions: Paul E. Lydolph, Geography of the U.S.S.R., 5th ed. (1990); Michael T. Florinsky (ed.), McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (1961), with short articles on the individual rivers; S.V. Kalesnik and V.F. Pavlenko (eds.), Soviet Union: A Geographical Survey (1976; originally published in Russian, 1972); and Great Rivers of the World (1984), published by the National Geographic Society. M.I. L'vovich, Reki SSSR (1971), is a well-known work treating the hydrologic characteristics of the main rivers of the former U.S.S.R. Lev Konstantinovich Davydov, Gidrografiia SSSR, vol. 2 (1955), provides detailed studies of regional hydrology and hydrography. G.V. Voropaev and A.B. Avakian (eds.), Vodokhranilishcha i ikh vozdeistvie na okruzhaiushchuiu sredu (1986), examines the influence of water reservoirs on the environment. Schemes for large-scale water transfer are described in several articles by Philip P. Micklin: A Preliminary Systems Analysis of Impact of Proposed Soviet River Diversions on Arctic Sea Ice, Eos, 62(19):489493 (1981), focusing on the possible impact on the Kara Sea, into which the Yenisey drains, The Vast Diversion of Soviet Rivers, Environment, 27(2):1220, 4045 (March 1985), and The Status of the Soviet Union's North-South Water Transfer Projects Before Their Abandonment in 198586, Soviet Geography, 27(5):287329 (May 1986). Philip P. Micklin