It is the central one of three large Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two being the Ob and the Lena). The maximum depth of the Yenisey is 61 metres (200 ft) and the average depth is 14 metres (45 ft).
A significant feature of the Upper Yenisei is Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake in the world.[14]
Brekhovskie Islands
The Brekhovskie Islands (Russian-language article: Бреховские острова) lie in the Yenisey estuary and have an area of some 1,400,000 hectares. They provide a wetland habitat for rare and endangered birds and are an internationally important nesting and breeding area for several types of waterfowl.[15] The most north-easterly of the islands, Nosonovskij Ostrov ("Nose Island") was visited by Fridtjof Nansen in 1913.[16]the was the Yenisei river.
The Yenisey valley is habitat for numerous flora and fauna, with Siberian pine and Siberian larch being notable tree species. In prehistoric times Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris, was abundant in the Yenisey valley c. 6000 BC.[18] There are also numerous bird species present in the watershed, including, for example, the hooded crow, Corvus cornix.[19]
Taimyr reindeer herd
The Taimyr herd of tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandussibiricus), the largest reindeer herd in the world,[20][21] migrates to winter grazing ranges along the Yenisey.[22]: 336 It had an estimated 800,000-850,000 individuals as of 2010, but has peaked at over one million.[23]
Navigation
River steamers first came to the Yenisei River in 1864 and were brought in from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom across the icy Kara Sea. One was the steamer Nikolai. The steamship Thames attempted to explore the river, overwintered in 1876, but was damaged in the ice and eventually wrecked in the river. Success came with the steamers Frazer, Express in 1878 and, the next year, Moscow hauling supplies in and wheat out. The Dalman reached Yeniseisk in 1881.
Imperial Russia placed river steamers on the massive river in an attempt to free up communication with land-locked Siberia. One, St. Nicholas took the future Tsar Nicholas II on his voyage to Siberia, and later conveyed Vladimir Lenin to prison.
Engineers attempted to place river steamers in regular service on the river during the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The boats were needed to bring in the rails, engines and supplies. Captain Joseph Wiggins sailed the Orestes with rail in 1893. However, the sea and river route proved very difficult with several ships lost at sea and on the river. Both the Ob and Yenisey mouths feed into very long inlets, several hundred kilometres in length, which are shallow, ice bound and prone to high winds and thus treacherous for navigation. After the completion of the railway, river traffic reduced to only local service as the Arctic route and long river proved much too indirect a route.
The first recreation team to navigate the Yenisey's entire length, including its violent upper tributary in Mongolia, was an Australian-Canadian expedition completed in September 2001. Ben Kozel, Tim Cope, Colin Angus and Remy Quinter were on this team. Both Kozel and Angus wrote books detailing this expedition,[24] and a documentary was produced for National Geographic Television.
Nomadic tribes such as the Ket people and the Yugh people have lived along the banks of the Yenisey since ancient times, and this region is the location of the Yeniseian language family. The Ket, numbering about 1000, are the only survivors today of those who originally lived throughout central southern Siberia near the river banks. Their extinct relatives included the Kotts, Assans, Arins, Baikots and Pumpokols who lived further upriver to the south. The modern Ket lived in the eastern middle areas of the river before being assimilated politically into Russia during the 17th through 19th centuries.[26]
Some of the earliest known evidence of Turkic origins was found in the Yenisey Valley in the form of stelae, stone monoliths and memorial tablets dating from between the seventh and ninth centuries AD, along with some documents that were found in China's Xinjiang region. The written evidence gathered from these sources tells of battles fought between the Turks and the Chinese and other legends. There are also examples of Uyghur poetry, though most have survived only in Chinese translation.[27]
Wheat from the Yenisey was sold by Muslims and Uighurs during inadequate harvests to Bukhara and Soghd during the Tahirid era.[28]
Russians first reached the upper Yenisey in 1605, travelling from the Ob, up the Ket, portaging and then down the Yenisey as far as the Sym.[29]
Studies have shown that the Yenisey suffers from contamination caused by radioactive discharges from a factory that produced bomb-grade plutonium in the secret city of Krasnoyarsk-26, now known as Zheleznogorsk.[31]
Gallery
The bridge over the Yenisey in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, viewed from the left bank.
Vinogradovsky Most, the bridge in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, viewed from the left bank.
The Yenisey (left) and the Ob flow into Kara Sea (south at top in this view).
^Russell, D.E.; Gunn, A. (20 November 2013). "Migratory Tundra Rangifer". Arctic Report Card. NOAA Arctic Research Program.
^Kolpashikov, L.; Makhailov, V.; Russell, D. (2014). "The role of harvest, predators and socio-political environment in the dynamics of the Taimyr wild reindeer herd with some lessons for North America". Ecology and Society. 20 (1). JSTOR26269762.
^Fisher, Raymond Henry (1943). The Russian Fur Trade, 1550-1700. University of California Press.
^Weinberg, Gerhard L. Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders Cambridge, England, United Kingdom:2005--Cambridge University Press [1]Archived 17 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
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