River transport. Transportation by river transport. River Station

Water (river) transport is a transport that carries passengers and cargo by ships on waterways as natural origin (rivers, lakes) and artificial (reservoirs, canals). Its main advantage is its low cost, due to which it occupies an important place in the federal transport system of the country, despite seasonality and low speed.

Advantages and disadvantages

River transport of Russia plays an important role in inter-district and intra-district transportation of our country. Its advantages are in the ways of natural origin, the construction of which uses a lower amount of costs than the construction of railways and highways. The cost of cargo transportation by waterways is lower than by rail. And labor productivity is higher by 35 percent.

However, river transport has a number of shortcomings - a seasonal nature, low speed of movement, limited use, which is caused by the configuration of the water network. In addition, the large arteries of our country flow from north to south, and from south to north, and the main cargo flows have a latitudinal direction.

Major highways

Thanks to the construction of the cascades of hydroelectric complexes, the rivers Volga and Kama have turned into deep-water highways. The Moscow-Volzhskoye, Belomoro-Baltiyskoye, Volgo-Baltic, Volgo-Don and Volzhskoye inter-basin connections form today a single deep-sea system, the total length of which is 6.3 thousand kilometers. With the steady growth of domestic water transport in the eastern part of Russia, the leading position is still maintained by the Volga-Kama basin. On its rivers it is necessary more than fifty percent of transportation of passengers and cargoes. The main place in this basin was taken by river transport of building materials (60 percent). Their transportation is carried out in both directions, it is mainly intra-district.

And what is transported along the waterways of Russia?

River transport on these arteries mainly carries out the delivery of the forest, both on ships and in the old manner, on rafts, by the alloy method. From the Kama to the Volga, the Siberian forest is transported, and along the Volga-Baltic route - the forest of the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions, Karelia for the regions of the North Caucasus and the Volga region. River transport in Moscow is involved in transporting forests on the same channel in Moscow and Moscow. Through the ports of the Volga and Kama, Kuznetsk coal is transported to the basin, and then it is transported along waterways to power stations. In addition, a prominent place is taken by the delivery of salt - from the Baskunchanskoye salted fishery up the Volga to the ports of the Volga region, the Urals, the Center, to the Northwest fisheries enterprises and for export. In addition, agricultural produce (melons) from the Volgograd and Astrakhan regions, fish from the Caspian Sea, as well as chemical products from the Volga and the Urals are sent upstream along the Volga. In both directions, oil products and oil, grain cargoes are transported.

Main directions

Russian river transport is especially developed in the Volga-Kama basins, because Kama with its tributaries - Vyatka and Belaya - is of great importance in the connections of the Urals with the Northwest, the Center, the Volga region. On the Kama, mainly grain, timber, oil, chemical cargo, construction mineral materials are transported mainly downstream. In the opposite direction, coal, cement and timber are transported. In the headwaters of Kama, the traffic is much less. In addition, the Volga-Don Canal contributed to an increase in the transport of bulk cargo along the Volga. Thanks to it, from the areas that adjoin the Don, along the Volga, transport grain, coal, melons, industrial products and other goods. In the opposite direction - cement, ore, timber, chemical products. All this is transported by river transport. Samara, like other cities in the Middle Volga region, is the main consumer of these goods. The water transport links of this basin with the North-West area, as well as with the foreign states of the Baltic Sea through the Volga-Baltic Way, play an important role in the development of transport. Through it, apatite concentrate, ore, building materials, timber are transported to the south, and chemical cargoes, grain, coal and oil products are transported to the north.

Passenger Transportation

In the Volga-Kama basin concentrated and the main passenger flows. Any river station will offer citizens a lot of local, transit, intracity and suburban destinations. Passenger ships are widely used in the organization of tourism or recreation. The longest are the transit lines from Moscow to Astrakhan, Perm, Rostov and Ufa. The largest river station is in the Russian capital. In the Volga-Vyatka basin the largest river ports are Nizhniy Novgorod, Volgograd, Moscow, Perm, Astrakhan, Kazan, Yaroslavl.

North-west direction

The rivers have long served as the central transport communications of the North-Western and Northern economic regions. In its European part, the main waterways for the transport of goods are the Northern Dvina with its tributaries Sukhona and Vychegda, Pechora, Mezen, and in the Northwest - Svir, Neva and the White Sea-Baltic Canal. A powerful stream of mineral building and oil materials, forests, as well as grains and coal passes through the northern waterways. The main ports are Naryan-Mar, Pechora, Mezen, Arkhangelsk, Kotlas.

The North-West basin ensures the delivery in the south of the forest and iron ore from Karelia, apatite concentrate from the Kola Peninsula. In the opposite direction - industrial goods, grain, salt and oil products. The transit points for various goods are the Volkhov, Petrozavodsk and St. Petersburg. From here, permanent passenger lines are organized to Moscow and the Verkhnevolzhsky District. Well developed and local routes, especially this became apparent with the increase in the number of high-speed vessels.

East direction

In the east of Russia, the Ob-Irtysh basin of Western Siberia occupies the first place in transport issues. River transport here contributed to the development of gas and oil resources, as well as forestry. Coal, drilling equipment and pipes, building materials, food and industrial goods to the oil and gas fields of the Tyumen Region are supplied from the main transport hubs (Tobolsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk) along the Irtysh and Ob rivers. Delivery of cargo to the inland regions of the mainland is carried out along the Northern Sea Route with subsequent transshipment at the mouths of the Taz, Pura and Ob rivers to river vessels. Most of the traffic falls on the forest, which comes in rafts to the river port of Asino. Then it is transported by ship to Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk. More than a quarter of deliveries in the Irtysh and the Ob are construction materials coming from the southern regions to the north, to the oil and gas industry. In addition, river transport in the transportation of grain, salt, coal and oil products is of great importance.

On the Ob, along with the ancient ports of Barnaul and Novosibirsk, the important role is played by the ports that arose in connection with the creation of industrial centers - Surgut, Ob, Labytnangi, Salekhard.

Yenisei and Angara

River transport of the Yenisei connects the southern part of Eastern Siberia with the regions of the Polar region. Here, timber transportations account for two-thirds of the total Yenisei cargo turnover. In addition, grain, oil products, coal and mineral building materials are transported along the river. The upper Yenisei, from Minusinsk to Krasnoyarsk, is characterized by the predominance of the freight stream downstream, the main place in it is grain.

The mouth of the Angara: from here comes the main part of the forest, divides the flow of goods on the Yenisei. The main part is directed upwards, and from the mouth and up to Dixon - down the river. In addition to the forest, a significant position is occupied by transportation of building mineral materials and coal. The main ports are Krasnoyarsk, Yeniseisk, Dudinka, Igarka, and on the Angara - Makarievo, Bratsk, Irkutsk, Ust-Ilimsk.

Lena and Cupid

On the Lena, shipping starts from the port of Osetrovo and is carried out to the delta of the river. Here, in addition to domestic goods deliver cargo that comes from the railway - from the bay of Tiksi and Osetrovo. Two thirds of the traffic is coal and building materials, the rest - timber and oil. Most of them go from the top down. Cargo operations are carried out in the ports of Kirensk, Osetrovo, Yakutsk, Vitim.

In the Far East, the Amur River and its tributaries of Bureya and Zeya are of great transport importance. The main cargoes are grain, salt, metal, coal, timber, oil and fish. Large ports - Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk. In these areas, due to the underdeveloped infrastructure of land communications, river transport is also important in the transportation of passengers.

Sea transport

The main significance of sea transport lies in the fact that it provides a very significant part of Russia's foreign trade. Cabotage is essential only for supplying the eastern and northern coasts of the country. The freight turnover for sea transport is eight percent. This is achieved as a result of the longest transportation distance - about 4,5 thousand kilometers. Passenger transportation by sea is insignificant.

Problems of sea transport in Russia

On the scale of the planet, sea transport takes the first place in terms of cargo turnover, with the lowest cost of deliveries. In the Russian Federation it is relatively poorly developed, this is because the main economic centers of our country are far removed from seaports. In addition, most of the seas that surround the territory of Russia are freezing. This significantly increases the cost of using this type of transport. Another problem is the very out-of-date fleet of our country. So, sea and river transport of Russia was built more than twenty years ago, which is unacceptable by world standards, such ships should be written off. In the domestic fleet, there are practically no modern types of vessels: lighter carriers, container carriers, gas carriers, ships with horizontal unloading-loading and others. Before joining the Crimea, Russia had only eleven large seaports, and this is not enough for such a large country. As a result, about half of the cargoes going by sea were serviced by foreign ports. These are mainly former Soviet republics: Ukraine (Odessa), Latvia (Ventspils), Estonia (Tallinn), Lithuania (Klaipeda). The use of maritime transport hubs of other states contributes to large financial losses. If the situation with the Black Sea ports is more or less resolved, then a new port is being constructed on the Baltic Sea coast.