Kura
Kura მტკვარი (Mtkvari), freestyle |
||
Kura near Likani in the Lesser Caucasus , Georgia |
||
Data | ||
location | Turkey , Georgia , Azerbaijan | |
River system | Kura | |
Headwaters | west of Ardahan 40 ° 40 ′ 23 " N , 42 ° 45 ′ 54" E |
|
Source height | approx. 2650 m | |
muzzle |
Caspian Sea Coordinates: 39 ° 17 ′ 11 " N , 49 ° 25 ′ 40" E 39 ° 17 ′ 11 " N , 49 ° 25 ′ 40" E |
|
Mouth height | 28 m below sea level | |
Height difference | approx. 2678 m | |
Bottom slope | approx. 2 ‰ | |
length | 1364 km | |
Catchment area | 218,906 km² | |
Runoff at the Tbilisi gauge |
MQ |
205 m³ / s |
Discharge at the Mingəçevir gauge |
MQ |
402 m³ / s |
Discharge at the gauge near the mouth |
MQ |
575 m³ / s |
Left tributaries | Great Liachwi , Ksani , Aragwi , Alasani , Iori , Türyançay | |
Right tributaries | Chrami , Aghstafa , Şəmkirçay , Aras , Were | |
Reservoirs flowed through | Şəmkir Reservoir , Mingəçevir Reservoir | |
Big cities | Tbilisi , Rustavi , Mingachevir | |
Medium-sized cities | Gori | |
Kura in Tbilisi |
||
Course of the Kura |
The 1364 km long Kura (dt too. Kur , Georgian მტკვარი Mtkvari , Azerbaijani freestyle , Turkish Kura ) is the largest river in the Caucasus .
Surname
In ancient times the river was called Cyrus . The Turkish name Kura was first used by Russian and later by Western European cartographers. The Russian historian and linguist Diakonov derived the name of the Kura River from Quirane , a country known from the annals of the Urartian king Sarduri II, which was not far from Iga in the vicinity of Lake Çıldır . JL Parrot tried to derive his name version Gur from the Celtic "Gur, Cur, Ur, Wr" = river; he was followed by Eduard Stucken in his poem Satinig , which thematizes the battle between Armenia and Iberia (= Georgia) on the Kura bank in the 1st century AD.
The Georgian name Mtkvari ( მტკვარი ) is the Georgian word Mtknari ( მტკნარი related), which means "fresh water".
course
The Kura rises in northeastern Turkey in the province of Ardahan , about 50 km south of the city of Ardahan. It flows through Georgia and Azerbaijan until it flows into the Caspian Sea . The upper course winds through the mountains towards the northeast. From about Gori the main direction of flow is south-east and leads in the lower reaches through the Kura-Aras lowlands and wide steppes . There is a delta at the mouth of the Caspian Sea . Its largest tributaries are the Aras (formerly Araxes), Großer Liachwi , Ksani , Aragwi , Chrami and Alasani .
use
The Kura is used for reservoirs and hydropower plants, for example the 605 km² Mingəçevir reservoir ; there is a hydropower plant with an output of 359 megawatts . From Mingəçevir in Azerbaijan, the river is navigable for a total of 480 km, but is no longer of any importance as a transport route for inland navigation . Industrial and municipal sewage companies sometimes seriously pollute the river. Not inconsiderable amounts of cobalt , tin , nickel and cadmium are washed into the Kura from the Georgian mining region of Marneuli .
In 2002, Armenia , Azerbaijan and Georgia, together with the German Federal Environment Agency, founded a project for cross-border cooperation on accident prevention in the Kura catchment area. A water disaster like the one on the Romanian Tisza in 2000 is to be prevented.
literature
- Franz Heinrich Weißbach : Cyrus 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 1, Stuttgart 1924, Col. 184-187.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Article Kura in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)
- ^ IM Diakonoff , S., M. Kashkai: Répertoire Géographique des textes cuneiformes . 9. Geographical names according to Urartian texts (Wiesbaden 1981), 71
- ↑ Paul Zimansky, review of Who were the Cimmerians, and where did they come from ?: Sargon II, the Cimmerians, and Rusa I . by Anne Katrine Gade Kristensen. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Historisk-filosofiske Meddelelsler 57 . Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1988, p. 52
- ↑ JL von Parrot: Attempt to develop the language, descent, history, mythology and civil relationships of the Liwen, Latten, Eesten, vol. 1. Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1828, p. 173; 2nd edition digitized (Klemann, Berlin 1839) on Google Books .
- ↑ Eduard Stucken: Satinig. In: Romances and Elegies. Erich Reiss, Berlin 1911, pp. 65–67; Digitized in the Internet Archive .