Kura

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Kura
მტკვარი (Mtkvari), freestyle
Kura near Likani in the Lesser Caucasus, Georgia (early color photo by Prokudin-Gorski, around 1915)

Kura near Likani in the Lesser Caucasus , Georgia
(early color photo by Prokudin-Gorski , around 1915)

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

Kura in Tbilisi

Course of the Kura

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

Web links

Commons : Kura  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Article Kura in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D067552~2a%3D~2b%3DKura
  2. ^ IM Diakonoff , S., M. Kashkai: Répertoire Géographique des textes cuneiformes . 9. Geographical names according to Urartian texts (Wiesbaden 1981), 71
  3. 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
  4. 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 .
  5. Eduard Stucken: Satinig. In: Romances and Elegies. Erich Reiss, Berlin 1911, pp. 65–67; Digitized in the Internet Archive .