The upper reaches of this river are the most popular place for water tourism. In the summer, you can often see groups of people rafting through its waters in boats and rafts. And the extremely picturesque shores are a favorite place for beach lovers. This river has a beautiful name Agidel, which translates as "White River".
Agidel is the pearl of Bashkiria. There is nowhere else such a place where one could feel the greatness of the beautiful mountains of the Southern Urals, feel the spirit of the times and feel the power of beautiful legends and tales.
Geography
The beginning of the Belaya (Agidel) River is located in the very heart of Bashkiria - between the Ur altau and Avalyak ranges. As noted above, these are the mountains of the Southern Urals. The first third of the river's path passes through the intermountain basin to the southwest, and its character is no different from other rivers of the Urals. She is just as cheerful and playful.
Then the river breaks through the ridges to the west, to the Russian Plain, after which it turns north and crosses the territory of the entirerepublics. Local residents respectfully call her the mother of all rivers of Bashkiria.
Description of the Agidel River
Belaya is the most important waterway of Bashkortostan, the left tributary of the Kama River. The area of its basin is 141,900 square meters. kilometers. The length is 1420 km. The river takes its beginning not far from the city of Iremel (east of it).
The waters of the upper reaches flow through a marshy low valley. Further, below the village of Tirlyansky, it narrows sharply. Some parts of it have steep, steep slopes covered with forest. As the river enters the steppe plain, below the confluence of the Nugush (right tributary), its channel expands again, and after the confluence of the river. Ufa Agidel becomes a typical flat river.
Further, flowing through a rather extensive floodplain, the river meanders, breaking into branches. The right bank is more elevated.
Tributes of the river and city
The main food is snow. At the mouth, the average annual water discharge is 950 m3/s. Largest tributaries:
- right: Sim, Nugush, Ufa, Quick Tanyp, Bir;
- left: Urshak, Ashkadar, Karmasan, Dema, Baza, Chermasan, Xun.
The river is navigable from the mouth to the city of Ufa, then navigation is irregular to the Meleuz pier.
On the banks of the Belaya there are such cities as Ufa, Meleuz, Beloretsk, Salavat, Ishimbay, Sterlitamak, Birsk and Blagoveshchensk. And in the place where the beautiful river Agidel breaks out of the mountain gorges of the Urals into the hilly expanses, there is a huge villageYumagusino.
Numerous bridges have been built across the river, the largest of which (railway and road) is thrown in the capital of Bashkiria - the city of Ufa.
Fauna and flora
A wide variety of fish are found in the waters of the Agidel River: common roach, pike, bream, perch, catfish, pike perch, chub, ruff, buckle, burbot, minnow, sterlet, silver bream, minnow, trout (only in the upper reaches), ide, grayling, asp, dace, taimen (very few). This is a real treasure trove for anglers.
The banks of the river are mostly covered with steppe vegetation, and forests (mostly broad-leaved) are found only in places. In the middle reaches, mostly willows, poplars and wild roses grow around. Blackberries grow in large quantities in the lowlands near the river.
Rafting on the Agidel River
Group rafting is organized along Belaya, which everyone can use.
Water voyage along the Belaya gives you the opportunity to get great pleasure from traveling to amazingly fabulous places, to learn the fascinating history of the Southern Urals, to hear the legends about this wonderful and mysterious land.
Agidel is one of the most popular boat, raft, kayak and catamaran routes. Here passes the once former All-Union route No. 59, called "Along the Belaya on rafts".
Natural Attractions
In addition to rafting enthusiasts, numerous speleologists visit the river basin. It is here that the world-famous Kapova is located.a cave with preserved primitive drawings, there is Mindegulovskaya cave, Teatralny, Akbutinsky and Kutuk-Sumgan failures, and many other smaller caves and grottoes.
Where there are exits to the earth's surface of groundwater, wonderful blue lakes are formed with the purest ice water, rich in various minerals. The most famous is the Blue Lake, from where the Sakaska stream originates. This is the beginning of the Shulgan River, located near the entrance to the Kapova cave, and the griffin Tarawal.
Shulgan-Tash Nature Reserve
The Agidel River in Bashkiria flows through the Shulgan-Tash Nature Reserve and Kandrykul Park. The cave of the same name is one of the most picturesque, and one of the largest karst caves in Bashkiria. It ranks 5th in length (2,910 meters studied length) and 2nd in depth (160 meters amplitude) among all Bashkir caves.
It is famous thanks to the ancient drawings on its walls (the times of the late Paleolithic). Their age is 17,000 years, as there is scientific evidence. Previously, such Paleolithic paintings were found only in France and Spain.
Four halls of the cave have such ancient images - the Halls of Signs, Chaos and Dome on the first floor, and the Hall of Drawings on the second floor.
Most of the paintings (38%) are abstract signs, in second place (32%) are hardly distinguishable spots, but quite colorful (remains of drawings destroyed by time). On the third (27%) - zoomorphic images, among which the figures of horses and mammoths predominate, butthere are bison, bulls, rams, deer. All of these are messages from ancient ancestors left in the underground halls of Shulgan-Tash.
A bit about the history of the river in legends
Many interesting facts exist in the history of rivers (Agidel among them) and the Ural Mountains. It is impossible to tell about all of them.
There is one beautiful folk legend "Ural-Batyr", which goes back to ancient times. The protagonist of the legend performs many feats: he defeats the cruel padishah Katila, over terrible monsters in the kingdom of the Kahkahi snake, saves people, birds and animals from the padishah of the divas Azraki. Having obtained living water, the batyr sacrifices himself, and does not gain immortality by drinking it himself. He sprinkled it around him to keep nature alive forever.
People after his death poured a high mound over his grave. From him, the Ural Mountains were formed, and the remains of the Ural Batyr miraculously turned into gems, iron, copper, gold and silver.
This hero had assistants - three sons: Idel, Yaik and Nugush. Sakmar, who renounced his own father Shulgen (the elder brother of Ural-Batyr), became the fourth. All of them, with their diamond swords, cut through the riverbeds in the mountains in order to save the suffering people from thirst. The legend says that the formed rivers received the names of those same four batyrs.
Now the names of 2 of those rivers have changed: the Yaik became the Urals, and the Agidel Idel.
