Legends about the population of Donbass. Myths and legends about Donbass. Examining illustrations of the native land

Svetlana Goncharenko
Summary of the lesson “An unusual journey into the history of the native land. Donbass "

An unusual journey into history

native land

Target: to instill in children a sense of patriotism towards their small homeland; make children feel proud of their city. Give children knowledge about stories, culture hometown... Create a good mood in children, emotional responsiveness, high activity, a desire to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Vos-l: Each person most of all loves the land where he was born and lives. Everyone is proud of their native land, always wants to talk about him.

There are a lot of cities on earth, but for everyone the best, most beloved is the city in which he was born, in which he lives. We live in a glorious city, worthy of both love and pride, in the city of Donetsk.

1. Video "Donetsk is my favorite city"

Vos-l: Children, do you know poems about Donetsk?

Our city is many years old,

He went through a lot of grief and misfortune.

But despite all this he lived,

How much patience and strength there was!

The city is a hard worker, peaceful and glorious.

He is famous for waste heaps,

With millions of roses and lights

He will outshine any city.

I love my city dear

The city is bright and big!

For me, he is loved by everyone,

For me he is everything native!

Donetsk is a fragile, cloudless paradise,

Like a city of flowers and boulevards.

With a magical whisper pleases the edge

Miner's roads, sidewalks.

I love you, my Donetsk!

Where bread ripens in the steppe!

And mines, field, poplars,

I meet on the way!

My city is beautiful native,

And my homeland!

Maybe somewhere on the planet

There are better cities

Only me in Donetsk shines

The sun is always generous.

And it shines illumined

Bright gold rays

City of blue waste heaps

The city of resounding poplars.

Vos-l: Do you know the capital of the DPR? (Donetsk)... Children, we have today journey into the history of our Donetsk region... Are you ready to go?

2. Game-dance "we will go to the left"

Vos-l: Children, what proverbs and sayings about our city and the Motherland do you know?

1. A man without a homeland is like a nightingale without a song.

2. Beloved homeland, that Mother Dear.

3. On the foreign side, the Motherland is twice as mile.

4. Homeland - mother, know how to stand up for her.

5. Be in lava, as in battle, - you will glorify your homeland.

6. Mine face - front line.

7. To be called a miner, it is not enough to get dirty with coal.

8. Glory to the miner when lava gives a lot of coal.

9. At the mine, those who have coal flowing are honored.

10. The miner's law is not forget: be ashamed to work somehow.

Vos-l: true children. Mining labor is difficult. And they sing songs about it.

3. Song "Only he appreciates the sun"

Vos-l: Do you want to help the miners?

4. Game "Transport coal"(truck with "Coal" ride around the landmark and pass the car to another. The last one to sit on a chair, remove the helmet from shout: "End of shift!"

Vos-l: and also our children prepared a dance about a young miner.

5. dance "There in the coal mine"

Vos-l: All miners value team spirit! We need to learn to trust our friends and comrades. Therefore, now we will hold the relay with you.

6. Game "Who quickly" (transfer of the miner's helmet).

Vos-l: Well done boys. And you know poems and songs. But listen to the legend.

7. Video "The Legend of Shubin" The text is read by the teacher

(text to the film)

Each city, regardless of the time of its foundation, preserves the legends that are passed down from generation to generation. Legends last only as long as they live folk art... In the Donetsk region, for the first time at the end of the 18th century, industrial coal mining began. The first mining settlement was formed here more than 300 years ago.

In the mysterious underground depths, legends and beliefs were born, which the pioneer miners brought to the surface. For example, the legend about the underground spirit of Shubin, which can be compared with the Mistress of the Copper Mountain in the Urals. Shubin is responsible for all underground treasures Donbass... He has tremendous strength. Among the miners, there was an unambiguous about Shubin opinion: he is the owner of the mine, the lord of the local underground riches. Like other spirits "Owners of the land" like water, goblin, mermaid and brownie. To see Shubin means to have either fabulous help or warnings about death.

The appearance of the legend about the underground spirit is associated with the profession "Gas Zhoga"- a worker, there used to be such a terrible profession (to carry out work with setting fire to methane gas in mine workings. To prevent its explosion). Before each shift, he went down into the mine, walked through the workings with a torch and burned out the gas to prevent a methane explosion. He dressed in a fur coat with the fur outside and sometimes doused it with water. Therefore, gas burners were called fur-burners. it class was quite dangerous, and the deaths "Shubins" were not uncommon. Once one of these workers died - since then he has been walking in the workings Donbass the aged mining foreman Shubin warns the miners of the possible danger. Shubin appears in the form of an old miner, coughing like an old man, with brightly burning eyes. Shubin loves tell jokes: scares the miners by bursting into laughter in the darkness, or grabs the leg. He supposedly lives in distant or long-abandoned mine workings, where he can wander unnoticed.

And Shubin also helped the miners. For example, he dragged coal himself. And the greedy mine owner who screamed: "I am the owner of the mine! I do what I want and do!" Shubin proved who is the real owner here, having ruined the mine with explosions and collapses in the mine.

Only in Donetsk this image was nicknamed "Good", he began to be perceived as one of the symbols of miner's work. Shubin is distinguished at the same time by kindness, generosity and, at the same time, by extreme irritability and spite. He is benevolent to honest workers, the poor, and cruel and vindictive in relation to arrogant people, especially to the oppressors of the miners. Shubin helps workers trapped in the rubble.

Modern miners have little faith in mysticism, but in the life of each of them there have been cases when the blockage was exactly where a person was just a few minutes ago. A premonition is also possible. After all, those who have worked in the mine for a very long time have their own premonition of the miners. Therefore, Shubin helps the workers in our time. The soul of a dead working miner who wanders forever, lamp in hand, through endless underground labyrinths Donbass.

8. (Shubin's photo on the screen)

Vos-l: Guests have come to us unusual... They are from the distant past. Do you know how and why our city was called in the distant past? So this John Hughes is also legendary.

John Hughes and Shubin

Leading: Heard, they say, Yuz about the wealth of Donetsk the edges, and decided to earn some money for himself, to organize his own business. How the fame of coal deposits reached England. Hughes came to the Russian Empire to ask permission to run his own business and replenish his own pockets.

John Hughes: Would you please, your majesty, to give permission for coal mining and metal smelting, for the needs of the Russians?

The empress: I am glad to welcome intelligent people, so that Russian men can learn from you, and learn from experience with knowledge.

Leading: So Hughes got to the east of the Ukrainian lands, in the Donetsk steppes. And everything would be fine, but if only to know where to dig, where to look for coal ... And somehow Yuz wanders around the outskirts of the village, which was later called Yuzovka.

John Hughes: As if I had better attack on a coal vein.

(An old man in a fur coat approaches him)

Shubin: I know, sir, you are trying to find coal ... Many are looking, but not many are. You promise me, sir, that you will not fix the truth. You can't offend your workers. And you will not break the boundaries of what is permitted, and I will give you a card for that. You will begin to lead according to that development map, for yourself, and you will provide prosperity for generations to come.

And if you break your word, do not be angry, there will be trouble!

John Hughes: Promise! Promise! All you want I promise!

(Shubin gives a map.)

Shubin: On this map, all the deposits and the best layers at a glance.

(And when Hughes saw that map, he danced for joy.)

Leading: Hughes came to his senses, wanted to ask what to call that old man, but where did he get such a map. Look around, but there is no one, as well as there was no trace!

9. (photos of factories)

Wonders! Hughes marveled, but he was not saddened. And why, when the joy rolled such a gift.

Undertook to mine the ore on that map. And everything worked out great for him. And he kept his word to the strange old man honestly.

But there is no cure for greed. Hughes could not restrain himself, violated the delineated boundaries of permissible developments. And that shepherd appeared to him in a dream.

Shubin: You disobeyed me, sir, expect trouble!

Leading: And the trouble was not long in coming. The youngest son of the landowner died, and misfortune happened to his wife. Hughes rushed to look for that stukrik, ask for forgiveness.

John Hughes: Forgive me, old man, Here is your card. Do you want to take it.

(Shubin did not answer. He left.)

Leading: Hughes got upset, wandered home, looking at the map he had seen a hundred times on the road again. Suddenly, I noticed something that I had not noticed before, the uneven letter W in the lower corner. I started asking local miners.

Miner: (looked at the map) It was not an ordinary old man. That mountain spirit Shubin showed mercy. Yes, you have not justified trust, sir, now you cannot return your old luck at all, you would have remained alive.

Leading: Since then the landowner has gathered with his family and left the city.

Vos-l: like this history... And our the journey is coming to an end... You children have in your heart a high feeling of love for native land, and therefore you can do everything in order to Donbass and later blossomed and became rich. And for this you need to gain knowledge, know a lot and be able to, and most importantly, have a desire to bring good to people. So try to study so that your Motherland is proud of you.

10. Anthem of the DPR

Dobropolskaya city CLS Methodical and bibliographic department The legends of this local history manual, selected from the book by I.S.Kostyri "Duma about Donbass", are addressed to a wide range of readers who love their native land, are engaged in local history activities, study the history of Donbass and all of Ukraine. LEGENDS ABOUT THE SEA OF AZOV. The Azov Pomorians have long had their own legends about the name of the Sea of ​​Azov. They are associated with the name of the fisherman's daughter, a certain Aza. ////// According to one of the legends, Aza lived on the very shore of our sea with her old father. And she was so beautiful that all the lads did not take their eyes off her. She paid no attention to anyone, for, they say, she was too proud. She also boasted that she didn't like anyone. All the guys who lived nearby agreed, came to Aza and asked her to choose a groom among them. The beauty looked at them, thought, and then said: - You will compete. Whoever of you overcomes his comrades will be my betrothed. And the fellows began to compete. One came out of that competition as a winner, but Aza refused him, and even began to taunt the lads. Deceived rivals. They were angry with the proud woman, took and drowned her in the sea. Until now, when the water comes to the shore, from the sea you can hear either crying or moaning. Old people say that it is the beautiful Aza who is crying about her unidentified fiancé. And the sea is allegedly called Azov from her name ... ////// According to another legend, Aza also lived on the shores of our sea and was also indescribable beauty, but, unlike the first, this one loved a good-looking, wonderful guy. Yes, the alarming hour came, and Azin, beloved, went to war with the Turks. And before the hike, he gave the girl a gold ring so that she would wait and not forget her sweetheart. With the verdict he presented: - If you lose this ring, I will know about your infidelity. Several years have passed. Aza took care of the gift like the apple of her eye. And all the time she waited, looked out for the lad from the campaign, but he still did not return. And then one day a disaster struck. The girl went to the sea to wash the clothes, thought, and inadvertently dropped the ring into the water. And here, out of nowhere, a wave, 2 muddied the water - and the gift disappeared. Poor Aza got scared, threw herself into the waves to get her dear loss, and she drowned. Since then, they say, the sea is called Azov by the name of a mediocre girl who did not wait for her sweet one from the campaign. ////// The third legend tells about two sisters. Near the big water (that is, somewhere near our sea) once lived, they say, an old fisherman. His wife died long ago, leaving the unfortunate two daughters. One of them, the older one, was called Aza, and the other, the smaller one, the Golden-haired Gerbil. The sisters were so beautiful that whoever saw them, from that moment on, forget about the dream: he thinks everything about them. And the girls were looking for their happiness picky, none of the local guys was dear to their hearts. Aza sat every day on the seashore, on a high cliff, but kept looking out for someone. Perhaps his betrothed, who sailed to distant alien worlds and there, as people reported, died from the enemy's saber. And once, when the girl was sitting in the same reverie, a strong wind-storm suddenly blew out. Tall waves rose on the sea. They ran to the shore, beat in the steep slopes and groaned terribly. Suddenly a large piece of land broke away from the steep and, together with Aza, fell into the raging waves. The Golden-haired Gerbil saw this - and rushed to herself from the mountain into the sea to save her older sister. Yes, both sank ... The next morning, when the sea calmed down, the old fisherman returned from the guests, went to the seashore and saw that his daughters were not on the steepest, and in the place where Aza liked to sit, there was a fresh landslide. Father looked down - and there, under the very steep, such golden sand sparkles in the sun that it dazzles your eyes! And the sea is quiet, quiet and as gentle as his children ... And the unfortunate man understood everything and cried bitterly ... Since then, the sea began to be called the Azov Sea, because the beautiful Aza drowned in it. And there are so many long sandy spits in this sea that, together with Aza, her younger sister, the Golden-haired Peschanka, also drowned. Legends about the fisherman's daughter Aza (why the Sea of ​​Azov is called the Sea of ​​Azov) // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004. - P. 63. 3 LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF RIVERS AND BALOK. Once upon a time, a mighty and bloodthirsty serpent allegedly lived on earth. He devoured many people, for there was no one stronger than him in the world. At the same time, the blacksmiths lived by the grace of God - Kuzma and Demyan. And so they decided to squeeze that serpent from the world, in order to free the Slavs-tribesmen from its terrible burden. Once the snake stuck to them, and they - in the smithy. And they locked the iron doors with all non-dead bolts. The serpent says: - Kuzma, Demyan, God's forged, open, otherwise I will swallow you together with the forge! And they answer: - If you are with superhuman strength, then let go of the door. And then we sit on your tongue - and swallow. The serpent began to lick in the heat, while the blacksmiths heated the iron red-hot and forged huge tongs from it. As soon as the serpent burst through the doors and stuck out its tongue, Demyan and Kuzma grab that tongue with ticks! And they began to beat with hammers ... They killed the snake well, and then harnessed a plow that was designed for twenty pairs of oxen, and let's plow. They shouted the wild steppe up and down. And no matter how many snakes he asked, they did not give him anything to drink or eat. - It will be with you and that fat that has accumulated in people! - refused. - Well, if this is so, then before the Last Judgment I will illuminate the whole world with my fat so that you will go blind! - the snake threatened. They shouted for a long time, no, but they reached the sea. The serpent rushed into the sea and drink in the heat. Drank, drank - drank the sea. And - burst. Kuzma and Demyan took and buried that snake under the mountain, which people then called it - the Snake Mountain. God knows when it was in this world. And only with time kerosene poured from that mountain. It seems that the end of the world is about to come ... Yes, God, glory to those, as long as he had mercy. Although in the settlements and now not everyone shines with kerosene, bo - unclean ... Kuzma and Demyan, while the snake was not completely worn out, screamed deeply - and there the rivers flowed, and when he was finally worn out, they shouted finely - and there were beams. Here rivals and gulls have come from the steppes! Legends about the origin of rivers and beams // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 162-163. 4 LEGEND ABOUT THE GRIEVING WIDDER. The Grieving Widow huddles among the rocks. Or maybe she was not alone, but time did not spare. For here in 1223, after the terrible battle on Kalka, many wives, mothers, sisters rushed to find their relatives among the dead Russians. Seeing an unheard-of, never-before-seen slaughter, one of the wives, according to legend, turned to stone on the spot. The Legend of the Grieving Widow // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004. - P. 56. LEGEND ABOUT LOW TYPE AND HIGH FORWARD. Even earlier, when there was a merciless war between the Polovtsi and the Russian princes, the opponents sent, those from their side, and those from their own, the nosy Typchak, the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan, and a brave warrior named Kovyl, went into reconnaissance. At night, they almost collided among the Stone Graves. The moon illuminated them with a bright light at that moment. The girl was struck by the fabulous beauty of the young Russian. And he, too, was captivated by her indescribable appearance. They could not kill each other. Nor could they betray their own. When the first rays fell on the ground, they were seen standing together in the mountains. - Treason! - shouted the opposing sides. Arrows flew from both camps. Yes, high - not to get it. But they did not have time to execute them either. The lovers threw themselves down from a high stone and crashed to death. Where the drops of their blood fell, grasses grew - low typchak and high feather grass. Nature has immortalized the lovers in the form of two stone bodies lying with their heads to each other. The legend about low typchak and high feather grass // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 56-57. LEGEND ABOUT STONE GRAVES. They say that in the 18th century there was a Tatar city here, there were mosques, the ruins of which are still guessed. Is it so, no, however, among the German colonists who lived nearby in the village of Gros-Werder, the legend was really passed from mouth to mouth that indeed in this place in the old days there was a beautiful city with magnificent palaces, in one of which she lived young queen. No one knew why the city had turned into stone heaps, only it was said that it could be restored from the ruins, for which it was necessary to find an incredibly brave young man. On the night of June 23-24 at 11 o'clock, that queen appears -de on the highest stone, and next to her is a wonderful flower, supposedly a fern. The young man should take this flower from the queen and 5 bring it to his village. And then, they say, the city will revive again. Yes, it is incredibly difficult to do what you want. Because at the time when the daredevil will carry the flower, a terrible stomp, screams will be heard behind him, ghosts will haunt him. He should neither look back, nor utter any words. The colonists said that they had such a young man in their village who was not afraid of anyone or anything. Here he was that June night and went to the Stone Graves. And he waited: at 11 o'clock he saw the queen on the stone, and next to her was the desired flower. But as soon as he intended to rip it off, the queen began to ask him not to touch it. It seemed that a stone heart would melt from her persuasion. However, the young man nevertheless tore it off and carried it to the village. When he walked, it seemed as if all the demons had broken free - such a hubbub arose behind him. And the ground moaned directly from the stamping of someone's feet. Yes, the daredevil did not look back, overcame his way. His brother hurried to meet him and asked to see a strange flower. - Look! - said the young man and gave him a flower. And all at once the stomp, and the ghosts, and the flower itself disappeared. The young man did not dare to go to the Stone Graves the second time. So the mysterious, enchanted city remained, not saved by anyone to this day. And the legend, together with the German colonists, migrated to Germany and from there came to us at the beginning of the 20th century. The Legend of the Stone Graves // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004. - P. 57. LEGEND ABOUT THE APPEARANCE OF STONE GRAVES. And the ancients also had a corresponding idea about the appearance of the same Stone Graves, already fanned over time by many legends and legends. He flew, they say, somehow the devil over the Dnieper. He looks at its calm wide expanse, at the people who sailed in boats, at the fishermen, and his black heart shook with anger. - Look, how they settled in ... Not good, it's not in my opinion ... And the Devil decided to bother people. When night fell, he took a sack and flew across the sea, to the high mountains. He picked up a wild stone there, returned to the Dnieper and poured it out in the middle. - Remember me! - said the Devil. “I’ll dam up the whole river with stone. 6 So he flew several times during the night. Already rocky rapids began to protrude from the Dnieper water. And once, already just before dawn, he gained more breed than usual. It flies, barely holds the sack with its claws. Somewhere below, a rooster crowed loudly. Devil's paw trembled, one end of the bag slipped out of it, and the stones flew to the ground, fell in the middle of the steppe. Since then, de and one can see there these dark heaps of wild stone, similar to the steppe graves. And people called them Stone Tombs. The legend about the appearance of the Stone Graves // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004. - P. 153. LEGEND ABOUT GOLDEN KOLODYAZ. Tsar Peter the Great also drank from it, returning from the last, this time successful, victorious, Azov campaign in 1696. About this episode, the legend has been retelling in its own way for more than three centuries, and this way, and that way, embellishing it according to their own vision and understanding. On the other hand, in all variants, a reliable historical fact is felt. Yes, and by that time people had already settled here, who became involuntary witnesses of what happened at that time. And, most likely, they kept the legend intact. Perhaps the soldiers themselves drank and watered the horses, marveling at the inexhaustibility of the well, which was used by the peasants of the landowner Lyovshin, who settled in this fertile place with his Polish wife back in 1680. And the soldiers could not accidentally find the well in the willow thickets, not rush to celebrate the king, even if he rode up the highest hill of Makurt, screaming about an extraordinary find, to which the king seemed to instantly go downstairs to personally look at the miracle cry. The peasants, and perhaps the landowner himself, delighted with the unspeakable guest - how, the tsar-father himself presented him to his estate! - presented to Peter the First the most precious thing they had - a cup of healing water. For a long time ago they were convinced of her miracles - no one has ever had a stomach for the entire time of their stay here. The king drank the Kelech in one gulp and closed his eyes in surprise - it was too cold, to the point of aches in his teeth, there was water, as much as his breath caught. But the taste was also rare, incredibly soft and almost sweet, it can be drunk directly by itself, no matter how much you drink. Finally, Pyotr rubbed his dandy, cocky mustache, threw open his huge eyes and showed strong white teeth in a pre-pleased, childishly happy smile. And he exhaled: 7 - Ah, golden water! He took out a gold thaler from his pouch, a coin of German production, since he hadn't minted Russian coins yet, he reigned for only ten years, and even then not alone, but until the current, victorious and therefore triumphant year with his brother Ivan, - got and threw it into the krynitsa, loudly saying: - From now on, he will be the Golden Well! Since then, this name has stuck - the Golden Well. And over time, and in the Ukrainian manner - the Golden Kolodyaz, since the landowner's peasants were mostly Ukrainians. The Legend of the Golden Kolodyaz // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 122-123. LEGEND ABOUT STONE FOREST. Nowadays, araucaria, these evergreen conifers, have survived only in South America, Australia and the New Caledonia Islands in the Pacific Ocean. We, on the Donetsk Ridge, have fossilized trunks of these trees, which have retained their original internal structure, in the place where the main spur of the ridge approaches Alekseevo-Druzhkovka, on a steep slope of the ravine. These trees, their petrified trunks, go ten meters into the depth of the earth, and the tops stick out to the outside. They cover up to one hectare in area. Unique witnesses of the ancient past! There is an interesting legend about the origin of this stone forest. One of the goddesses - the patroness of forests - wandered for a long time in a forest rich in game. She was tired, and she wanted to eat. He sees a hare hiding behind a bush. She waved her magic wand and struck down the gray, was about to fry him. Inadvertently, she looked up, and there the tops of the trees burst into flames. It turns out that they felt sorry for the poor hare, and they rebelled: the branches on the tops of the hot anger caught fire on their own. The goddess was furious. And so that the trees could never catch fire again, she forever turned them into stone. According to another legend, a long time ago in the ancient forest that grew in this area, a young hunter appeared. He was handsome, bold and daring. Over his shoulders hung a sagaidak, or quiver, with arrows, at his belt - a large hunting knife. Once a young man, while hunting, met a girl on a forest path - an unprecedented beauty. She sunk deep into his heart. And her toz liked the 8th young hunter. And this was a slave from the courtyard of a cruel forest lady who lived on a high hill in the forest. The young man and the girl from the day they met, began to secretly date, so that the dashing mistress would not find out. Once they stood under the spreading green branches, as if in a living tent. Suddenly, an unusual rider appeared in front of them: a young, still attractive woman was sitting on a large she-wolf, covered with a variegated blanket. Her long dark hair was tied in a gold hoop. The girl was completely numb - and her lips could not be parted. The guy guessed that this is the owner of these forests and the forest palace on the hill. Bad fame went about her throughout the district. And the young man was alert. The mistress liked him at first sight. For a moment she peered into his black eyes, looked at his blond hair. - Who are you, where did you come to my lands? she finally asked. The young man did not answer, only hugged the girl, dead from fear, tighter. The lady's face at once went red spots, filled with anger. She told the girl to go to her chambers, but the young hunter stood up for her beloved, did not let her go. The owner looked at the impudent guy for some time, looked at the slave, brandished her whip and dashed away. The young man grabbed the girl by the hand and led her deeper into the forest, away from trouble. However, suddenly lightning flashed, the sky rumbled with thunder, and a terrible downpour fell on them. An elastic, whipping wind bent the branches down the valley and broke trees. - This is her trick. Let's run, dear, get out of here quickly! - exclaimed the frightened girl. They rushed to run, hoping to quickly break free into the open space of Zales. They fled and fled, and meanwhile the forest hid, the storm and downpour subsided. And the fugitives felt that recently the soft needles on the trees had hardened, had become like stone, and these sharp needles painfully prick shoulders and arms, tearing clothes on them. - Do you see the forest turned to stone? This is really my mistress's evil trick, ”the girl lamented even more. Bending down and dodging the hard-stone sharp coniferous branches, they ran on. And here is the end of the forest. The boy and the girl climbed the mountain. And behind them there was a mad crash. A formidable stream of silt and stone slowly 9 devoured that part of the forest that grew in a deep depression and where they met secretly, hiding from the unkind ruler. A little later, only the lone tops of petrified trees remained above the plain where the heavy waves splashed. Legends about the origin of the stone forest // Kostyrya I. S. Duma about Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 154-156. LEGEND ABOUT DONETSK RANGE. The fact that over the Donetsk ridge was once completely splashed by the sea, leaving only its edges free, is evidenced by both legends and findings of geographers and geologists. In their totality, they appear as if legends, in which sometimes it is impossible to distinguish truth from fiction. The history of the Donetsk Ridge is rich in them. I can’t resist not to tell about one of them. It happened in the dense antiquity, back in the days when the local area where we live today was the seabed. And close to the sea, on a high rocky cliff, there was a small hut, built of flat stone, flat, quarried from the sandy coastal cliffs. And there lived in that hut an old, old, like this world, a fisherman with his granddaughter. What her name was, now no one will remember, because a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then from that coastal steep into the sea, and her name was lost in the fog of the gray past. It is only known that she was pretty, a beauty of beauties. And she was also proud and courageous. Local guys were afraid to touch her. The girl helped her old grandfather. Sometimes, he got sick, unable to fish for impregnation, then she herself went out into the open sea and always returned with a good catch. And in a tiny settlement, nestled at the edge of a dense forest, a young man lived with his previously aged mother - a slanting fathom in his shoulders, slender as a poplar, strong as an oak. And the strength was incredible. Fellow villagers said that once during a hunt, he beat a bear to death with a wooden hammer. He liked that beautiful girl. She didn't seem to notice him. While secretly thinking about him from everyone, we will be useful for a strong young man. Somehow early in the morning, when the old man fell ill again, the girl went out on her boat alone into the sea. It was a calm, gentle summer weather. She threw a net, sits to herself and sings a song, admires the distant sea, changing under the rising sun ... 10 Look, out of nowhere, a flock of sharks appeared. Already they are quite close, jumping high out of the water, sharpening their mouths, the hour is uneven and they will get to it. And then, as if from under the water, a healthy guy appeared next to her. He swung his dumbbell, gasped one shark on the head, and it went to the bottom, swung it again - and the second just threw up its tail, drowning. And the rest, nevertheless, bypass the side in a wolf pack, surround the boat. Some of them will jump out of the water at the very side, bite with might and main, trying to snatch the dovbnya. And in her mouth, both above and below, there are several rows of small teeth, strong and sharp. Well, straight to you the millstones! It will be crushed into powder in an instant, get caught only by her tooth ... But the guy knows threshing them on the heads, only the echo rolls over the sea! And when the latter disappeared into the depths of the sea, the guy swam closer to the girl, grinning, bowed ... She answered him with a pleasant smile, held out her hand. He carefully transplanted her into his canoe, and tied her boat to the side with a hemp rope, and they quietly, slowly swam to the shore. ... A lot of time has passed since then. In the place where the sea splashed, the Druzhkovskaya Mountain allegedly rises at its edge. In a quarry long worked out in it, where limestone and sandstone were mined, archaeologists found a whole crowd of shark teeth, untouched by time. The skeletons of the fish have decayed, and the teeth, covered with strong enamel, are preserved. And most importantly, the accumulation of those teeth seemed to lie exactly where the young man once defended a beautiful girl from sea predators ... And yet a petrified thirty-meter skeleton of a sea lizard was also found near Druzhkovka. So, who knows, maybe everything really happened, as told in the legend. Legends about the Donetsk Ridge // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 159-161. LEGEND ABOUT SARMATS. The famous ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who worked in the 5th century BC and was nicknamed "the father of history", was the first to describe partly the nature, partly the people of the southern Russian seaside steppes - all the primitiveness of the then local side, called Scythia at that time. According to his testimony, a long time ago, maybe two, or even three thousand years ago, warlike Amazon women lived in the world. Inexpressible fear they led to those lands where they made raids on their flying, wind horses. No one could defeat the brave warriors. 11 But in one of the many battles they were defeated by the Greeks, captured, put on a ship. Sails inflated by the wind drove him through the undulating waters to regions unknown to them. The captives sailed for a long time. One night, when all the soldiers were asleep, the warriors killed the watchmen, killed all the Hellenes and threw them into the abyss of the sea ... But here's the bad luck: none of the Amazons knew how to drive a ship. And then, unfortunately, a storm arose at sea, a storm broke out, he picked up the ship and carried it on the white-maned waves into the darkness of the night. Only at dawn did it wash them to an unknown shore. In the morning the wind died down, the sea calmed down, the sun came out. And it became clear that around, wherever you look, the wild steppe was forming. The Amazons took their swords, went ashore and moved across the steppe at random. After some time, they noticed a herd of horses grazing nearby in the juicy and tall, almost hiding them from sight, grasses. Wasting no time, the girls caught the horses and galloped in the direction of the hidden lights, which presented themselves as a blue-gray haze climbing upward over the bushes overgrown to the top and therefore an inconspicuous rage. And as they arrived, it turned out that they were Scythian warriors. The Amazons surrounded them at once and told them to follow them. The Scythians liked the brave and beautiful warriors. They crossed Tanais with them and stayed there to live together. From their marriages, the Sarmatian tribe seems to have gone. The Legend of the Sarmatians // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 174-175. LEGEND ABOUT SALT. A viperous viper, their mysterious land or paradise on earth is not like a bird's. The bird is somewhere in the warm waters, beyond the forests and beyond the heroes, and the viper is in the Russian land. That's what old people say about him. The weak girl went into the forest and fell into this vyry. Failed, fell to the bottom, and the vipers hiss like. And the biggest and, probably, the wisest of them, as he hisses at them - they all fell silent. Themselves weak, barely crawling. And there lay a gray stone alone. Any viper that gets close to him will lick and lick that stone. And then she retreats to the side, but much more nimble than she approached. And the older one, next to that girl, curls around and bows, with a nod of her head shows that she should lick that stone too. 12 - I, - the maiden told later, - took a long time to strengthen: as much as nine days! And then she licked it herself. And all at once oklemalsya and hunger disappeared - I don't even want to eat. And when the time came for the vipers to climb out, everyone was amazed in all directions. The eldest, however, stood up in an arc, and the maiden - on her and even got out. Who knows, perhaps the gray stone was the prototype of that "lick", which is made from rock salt for animals to this day. Snakes, they are known to be wise! It is not for nothing that the people have long had a saying: "Wise as a snake." It is possible that the primitive and the ancients already then guessed about the benefits of salt and used it. Or instinctively smelled, adopting the habits of animals. The only thing that remained unknown for us, distant descendants, was neither the discoverer of that time, nor the exact date of the discovery of this useful mineral, on which the Donetsk ridge is so rich. It is known only from paraphrases that salt production was practiced on the Tor River as early as the 13th century. And in the 16th century, during the reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, the first saline settlers allegedly appeared on the Bakhmutka River. The Legend of Salt // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 181-182. LEGEND ABOUT KINOVARI. And regarding cinnabar, the main ore from which mercury is produced and the largest deposits of which were discovered on the Donetsk Ridge, there has long been a legend. Maybe she was born by the ancient pioneers of our land, even before the Sarmatians stumbled upon this curiosity. And uncomplicated in its content, in some way it echoes with the old Ukrainian and Russian fairy tales, but all the same it is a witness of the nameless discoverers who discovered this priceless mineral in the Donetsk Ridge. Who knows, when it was, maybe a thousand years ago, maybe two, or maybe more. In the cozy valley of a fast-flowing stream, under a high mountain, there was a lonely squat dwelling on the outskirts, as if it had grown into the ground. A widow lived in it, and she had a son, a healthy young man named Zdolan. Why he was called in the Ukrainian manner, and not in Russian - Overcome, overcoming everything, one can only guess ... There was that young man of himself - what a clear month, such a beautiful "like" like an oak, strong, brave like an eagle, fast, like a doe, and a hard worker is a natural vigilant bee for you. The mother admired him and was happy with him, took care of him with love, he paid her a hundredfold for the mother's affection. Somehow, through dense forests and boundless steppes, through high mountains and wide valleys, through endless rivers and deep ravines, an unkind rumor reached them, a rumor flew to them: a terrible, insatiable three-headed dragon allegedly appeared in their uncrowded land. And no one seemed to be living from him - neither people nor animals. Zdolan heard this news and was saddened. All day I sat on the steep and kept looking to the east, to where the rumor of the three-headed dragon came from. The next morning he went to the local blacksmith. For three days he forged a sword for him, joked him for three days, and at the end of Zdolan, having thanked the blacksmith, said goodbye to his mother and went opposite the sunrise. For a long time, the sunburned mother looked after her first-day, lonely - her first and only son, her thoughts, that is, she mentally prayed that he would return to his native home safe and sound. Zdolan walked for a long time, no one knows about that. Maybe the first winter has passed, and the first spring, and the first flight, who knows. In a word, he spent more than one day on the road. And all around is a deaf and deserted steppe, deserted, bison explode, and wolves howl, and foxes bark in the first evening twilight. And Zdolan is alone, alone in this, consider it, a primitive world, as a primitive man who has not yet fallen into original sin. But before his eyes a dense forest grew, and next to him was an impassable swamp. Meanwhile, black clouds began to cover the sky, and darkness fell to the ground. And to meet him from that forest, hares, deer, beavers and martens, foxes and wolves, bears and moose rushed from that forest - as if from a terrible fire, the forest animal escapes, although everything around is covered with darkness, not a glimpse. Zdolan guessed that it was their fear that drove them out of the forest: somewhere, you see, the chief culprit of the disaster, which had reached them with his mother, was hiding in their distant side - the same beast about three heads that exterminated both people and beasts. Lo and behold - and because of the impenetrable trees, the monster creeps out to meet him - enormous, downright gigantic and, neither give nor take, with three heads with glowing eyes. And all three grins menacingly. And teeth stick out from each mouth. Not teeth - real swords! I saw the daredevil snake, shook all its heads in different directions and hissed: - Wait, I’ll arrange the first for you! The first meal, since I have already presented it to my domain. 14 Closer, closer, a kind of creature creeps up. The fearless youth raised a sharp sword and moved towards him. And the dragon, as it dies, will blow it all over with fire, as it strikes with its tail on a hundred-year-old tree - exactly what an instant it will chop off a stalk! Yes, he was not a timid young man. He rushed to him, swung his sword - and the head of the serpent rolled into the high grass, rustled in them like a windbreak. Wow, the dragon soared from pain and from fierceness, hissed as much urine as possible to the snake, already with an aspirated interior. And the blood from it, flying in large splashes, rushed upward, and then fell to the ground in heavy clots, but barely hit it, again became as if it were alive, ran in different drops from side to side and then it was absorbed by it, there was not even a trace left. The dragon shook himself off, the wound on one of his necks instantly healed tightly, as if there were no head at all. It would be bad if a new one grew up instead. Yes, apparently, the primary culprit of being is the Creator, God! - all the same he took this into account, although with three heads he was clearly overdoing it or overlooking it. And the dragon is already ready to fight again, quickly moved away from the dumbfounded. Well, the young man only marveled at his blood, which with tenacious drops in the ground disappeared without a trace, and he himself vigilantly guards every movement of the insidious adversary, who strives both with such a side, and with such a makar to contrive and grab him with some of the surviving toothy mouths - only a click, click, but all by, all with a blunder. The young man turned out to be dexterous and evasive. The dragon is too tough - and that's it! They fought for a long time. Around them, from the forest, only splinters lay. And the ground was covered in deep potholes. Here Zdolan chose the right moment, contrived and jumped to the very mouth with a sword - bang! And the second head rolled, spraying living blood on the ground, which instantly absorbed it, like the desired moisture. The lad is tired to death, he feels a trembling from weakness ran through his legs. And the serpent is furious, even more, one-headed, raging. Just look, it will grab it into its bottomless, insatiable mouth. The lad remembered about his mother, who would not wait for him, his eyes probably looked up and cried all the tears, he also recalled how the news of the three-headed man-eater and beast-eater frightened everyone in their neighborhood, his thought turned to his first father, the forefather of all their kind, about whom his grandmother told him so much, each time remembering him in endless tales of how he moved in matting posts from the Dnieper itself to the east - to settle in the wild steppes, and soon became the leader - the best of the best owners - and from all this, suddenly surging to him, the young man's strength rose, he swung his sword with all his might - and the last dragon's head poured into the swamp, only the bloody bulbashki galloped over his mug of greenery and again disappeared, like the previous ones, in his dead abyss without a trace and sign on the surface. Done, as they were! And the completely washed-out Zdolan plopped down on the grass pushed out with roots and fell into a dreamless sleep, just dead. When he woke up, because of the dark clouds, which, as soon as he looked at them, began to disperse, the sun peeped through, highlighted the glades in the forest. Here and there animals from the recent dusk began to appear, birds chirped merrily. And the forest seemed to breathe a sigh of relief in the morning mist - the fresh blue air soaked the young man, invigorating him and restoring his lost strength. ... How much, little time has passed since then, maybe a whole eternity, apparently only God knows about this. Somehow, in the area where the dragon once defeated Zdolan, the first miners appeared, who knew a lot about the ores hidden in the Donetsk ridge and in other places, and began to look for thick splashes of dragon blood in the depths of the earth. And they did find the white hard rocks that were being sought, and in them - granular specks of red color, similar to drops of hardened blood. It was cinnabar - a very valuable ore for making mercury, so much needed by people. And scientifically, the miners called her the Greek word "kinnaberi", which meant - dragon's blood. ... Legend is a legend, and a kind of mercury mine on the Donetsk Ridge was first laid in 1879. And they associate it with the name of the first Russian mining engineer A.V. Minenkov. And a mine was laid not far from the then village of Nikitovka, which arose from the Zaitseve settlement, a Zaporozhye settlement back in 1776, thanks to the diligence and zeal of Nikita Yakovlevich Devyatilov, after whom this village was named. In the local vicinity, in a sparsely inhabited steppe, Minenkov came across unusual stones with bright red blotches - a rock containing cinnabar. By the way, this word is also translated from Arabic "kinabaris" as "dragon's blood", not only from Greek. Minenkov put a lot of effort into exploration and development of the deposit he found. And he is, of course, a pioneer! And then he was joined by another mining engineer, seemingly German, a certain A.A. Auerbach, on whose capital a real, powerful mercury mine was built in 1885 on the lands of the Zaytsev peasants. He is considered the first in Donbass. 16 In terms of importance, in terms of value for a person, a drop of mercury can be compared, perhaps, with a drop of blood. Not draconian, of course, but human! Moreover, a drop of mercury, as they say and write about it, contains both the benefits of civilization and its history. The Legend of Cinnabar // Kostyrya I.S. Thoughts on Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004 .-- S. 189-193. LEGEND ABOUT THE BAKHMUTK RIVER. There is a legend about the daughter of the Polovtsian leader Bakhmet, who recklessly fell in love with a local shepherd. But the father opposed this love, sent the poor shepherd with his retinue to conquer the same world, about whose harmony and peace the shepherd sang more than once. In one of the skirmishes, the shepherd died. And then the daughter of Bakhmet cursed her father, who sent his betrothed to certain death, and she herself threw herself into a bottomless pit, overgrown to the crown of the forest. Bakhmut Khan never found her. Some time passed after the tragedy played out here, and in that trench a salt-water spring emerged - the water in it was salty from the tears of the khan's daughter, who even there, in the underground, inconsolably mourned her beloved with bitter, salty tears. That is why they called the newly born rivulet Bakhmutka, and hence - Bakhmut. Who will now find out exactly how it really was? In whose honor or memory the river was given this name. One way or another, these foreign names - both Thor and Bakhmutka - have taken root on the Donetsk land, from time immemorial Slavic, since ancient times. And they became integral, inseparable from our ancient history. Including the history of salt production in the Donetsk region. The legend of the Bakhmutka river // Kostyrya I. S. Duma about Donbass: In two parts. - Donetsk: Kashtan, 2004. - S. 231-232 .. A TALE ABOUT COAL. And when the miners joined in the search for an outlandish combustible stone, things went much more fun. In addition to my will, I return again and again to that thought, or maybe just a guess-assumption that the pioneers, the discoverers of it, could hardly have done without the help of chance and the wild animals that lived next to them in the uninhabited steppes for the time being. On this score, the writer Leonid Zharikov has either a legend, or a tale, or a real fairy tale. 17 Donbass is a happy land. And there is a fairy tale about how the underground treasures were discovered. A peasant with a gun was walking across the steppe. Looks, there is a deep hole in the ground. I looked into it, and there the cubs lurked. He pulled everyone out one by one and rejoices: "Hey, I will have a kind hat!" And then the fox mother came running, saw her children in the hands of a man and said: - Give my children, man, for this I will open the treasure for you. The uncle thought, thought and decided: what if the truth will give a treasure, it's not for nothing that the fox is asking so pitifully. - Okay, fox, you have your kids on, and for that show the treasure. - Take a spade, - says the fox, - and dig here. - Why? - You will find the treasure. Again the man believed the fox, took a pickaxe, a shovel and began to dig. At first the ground was soft and easy to dig. And then the stone went, I had to take a pickaxe. He pounded and pounded, he was sweating all over, but there was no treasure and there was no treasure. "Well, the fox cheat, you see, deceived." Our uncle thought so, but he continued to dig - his interest was sorted out, and he even dug out a hole, it’s a pity to quit his job: what if he really got to the bottom of the treasure? He went to hammer again, looked: black, black earth appeared. The uncle got dirty from head to toe - some eyes sparkle, but there is still no treasure. He spat, climbed out of the pit and lit a cigarette in annoyance. He sits and smokes, thinking: how and why did he believe the fox? Who does not know that the fox is cunning ... He finished smoking a cigarette and threw it aside. How much time has passed there, but he only smells - he was drawn to the smoke. He looked in one direction, in the other, looked back - there was no fire anywhere, only in the place where he threw the cigarette butt, fragments of black stones began to smoke. He himself broke them out of the ground and threw them to the surface with a shovel. He looks and marvels: the stones are burning! I collected other pieces nearby, threw them into the fire, and these were busy, but how hot! And then our treasure hunter realized: he collected black stones in a bag and brought them to his hut, threw them into the stove, and the stones caught fire and hummed before our eyes.<)т радости зовет он жинку: «Ставь, говорит, чугуны да кастрюли на плиту, погляди, что я за чудо-камни нашел». На другой день утречком побежал к своей яме, опять наорал горючих камней. А тут навстречу лиса. - Здравствуй, добрый человек. Доволен ли мною? - Хитрюга ты, Патрикеевна, обманула меня: гляди, какую яму вырыл, а клада нет. 18 - Не обманула я тебя, человек. Нашел ты клад, ведь горючие камни и есть самое богатое сокровище! «И то правда»,- подумал про себя мужик и говорит лисе: - Ну, коли так, спасибо тебе, лисонька... Живи на свете, радуйся своим деткам. Взвалил мешок с горючими камнями на спину и понес. И опять запылало-загудело в плите жаркое пламя, да такое, хоть окна и двери открывай и беги из хаты. Никому в селе дядька не сказал ни слова про счастливые черные камни. Только разве от людей спрячешься? Подглядели за ним, куда он ходит с мешком, увидали, как горят камни, и давай себе копать да похваливать соседа, дескать, вон какую он нам прибыль сделал. Пошел слух о черных камнях по всей округе. Докатилась слава до царя Петра. Затребовал он к себе того дядьку: «Какие такие ты нашел чудокамни, будто от них великий жар?» Ну, тот высказал царю всю правду и про лисичку не забыл. Удивился царь Петр и велел позвать к себе самого знатного вельможу, чтобы послать его с мужиком в те степные края да и казачий город Быстрянск и там искать горючие камни, жечь их и пробу чинить. Вельможа поговорил с дядькой, вызнал тайну про лисичку и про черные камни. Слушал и радовался вельможа: значит, много в тех краях зверя пушного, если простая лиса способна | (а такие дела. Взял он поскорее ружье-двустволку, подпоясался тремя патронташами и явился пред ясные царские очи: - Готов ехать, ваше царское величество! - А фузею зачем взял? - спрашивает Петр про ружье. - Охотиться, ваше величество... Мужик сказывал, там лис много. Царь и говорит ему: - Значит, ты, вельможа, не способен вести государственные дела, ежели прежде всего о себе да об охоте думаешь. И коли так, то иди служи на псарне... Заместо вельможи царь велел позвать разумного в науках мужика по фамилии Капустин. Дал ему царь свою кирку, лопату и велел отправляться в казачьи степи искать залежи горючего камня. Тогда-то, друг мой, и были открыты в Донбассе его сокровища - угольные пласты. И пошли с той поры шахты по всей нашей неоглядной донецкой земле. Поезжай в город Лисичанск - увидишь Григория Капустина, там ему памятник стоит из чистой бронзы. А в степь пойдешь и лисоньку встретишь, ей поклонись. 19 В который раз припомнилась расхожая легенда о том, как сам Петр Первый открыл то каменье, способное загораться и сильный жар давать. Это было якобы тогда, когда он возвращался из очередного Азовского похода. Солдаты-де бросили те уголья в костер, а они загорелись. В тот момент царь, дивясь и радуясь, вроде и произнес исторические слова: «Сей минерал, если не нам, то потомкам нашим, зело полезен будет». Не стану и повторяться - это предание катано-перекатано из поколения в поколение и так, и сяк, на разные лады. Легенда легендой, а слова эти Петр Первый и в самом деле произнес. Может, и после проб, которые учинили иноземные мастера найденному каменью. Сказка о каменном угле // Костыря И.С. Думы о Донбассе: В двух частях. – Донецк: Каштан, 2004. – С. 254-257. ЛЕГЕНДА О КАМЕННОМ УГЛЕ. Однажды бродил охотник по дикой степи, по балкам и выбалкам, по овражным перелескам в поисках добычи. Уже и подустал малость. Солнце же тем временем сдвинулось с полдня на запад, пора было и домой возвращаться - до дома ого-го еще сколько топать! И он решил отдохнуть немного, а заодно чего-нибудь поесть, чтоб пополнить силы, согреть нутро кипятком. Снял с плеча добытого на охоте зайца, тетерева, пойманного сельцами, рогожную торбу с несколькими окуньками, которых он поймал горстями на мелких и узких перекатах в Лугани. А еще на подходе сюда приметил родничок в байраке, к нему он и спустился. Затем начал собирать сушняк для костра. Видит, у подножия крутолобого склона балки свежий скат - лисья нора. Однако что за диво: земля, которую выгребала лапами рыжая наружу, какая-то необычная - черная-пречерная с виду, а в ней поблескивают черные камушки, большие и маленькие. Осмотрел нору. Сомнений не было: лисья. Да вот и шерсть рыжеватая в бурьяне позастревала. Охотник, вернувшись, расчистил старое пастушье кострище, обложил его черными камнями, принесенными от лисьей норы, высек огонь. Когда сушняк разгорелся, положил на жар завернутого в лопух окуня целиком, а сверху присыпал той же черной землей, чтоб он побыстрее упарился и равномерно спекся. И прилег отдыхать... Через какое-то время кинулся поглядеть на пекшуюся рыбу и страшно удивился: земля и камушки, принесенные от норы, были теперь не черные, а красные, охваченные поверху синими огоньками. Разгреб 20 поскорее костерок, а от окуня одна зола осталась - сгорел вместе с лопушиными листьями. - Ты смотри? - поразился охотник. - Земля горит! Или наваждение бесово? Он посидел, в раздумье и недоумении разглядывая неслыханное доселе явление, а потом еще взял из норы тех же камешков, бросил в жар. Сначала задымило слегка, и вслед затем сквозь дым выткнулись небольшие языки зеленовато-красного пламени. «Вот так чудасия! - еще больше поразился охотник. - Горит-таки земля!» Он и об усталости, и о еде забыл. Быстро набрал в свободную торбу тех камешков и земли черной, подхватил дичь, зайца и рыбу, притужил ремень для ходкости и заторопился в слободу, чтобы рассказать односельчанам о невиданной чудо-находке. А перед глазами у него все время было видение недавно горящей земли. Легенда о каменном угле // Костыря И.С. Думы о Донбассе: В двух частях. – Донецк: Каштан, 2004. – С. 257-258. ЛЕГЕНДА О СВЯТОГОРЕ. Встретился, говорят, однажды богатырь Святогор с печенегами. Много их было, а он один. И завязалась битва меж ними. Долго длилось ожесточенное сражение. Немало печенегов полегло от большого Святогорового меча. А он, раненый, продолжал биться. Но вот вражья отравленная стрела впилась в тело богатыря... Святогор ощутил слабость во всем теле... Понял великан - пришел конец. Поглядел на белый свет: на высокие меловые кручи-горы, на голубые воды Донца, склонился к гриве своего верного гривастого друга и тихо сполз с него, лег под скалой над Северским Донцом. Там и опочил. А местность эту люди назвали его именем - Святогорьем. Легенда о Святогоре // Костыря И.С. Думы о Донбассе: В двух частях. – Донецк: Каштан, 2004. – С. 207. ЛЕГЕНДА О ШУБИНЕ. Говорят, на том самом месте, где нынче лежит напоенный солнцем богатый, благодатный Донецкий край, когда-то, давным-давно, на заболоченных берегах тогдашнего морского залива росли дремучие леса, деревья в которых были совсем не похожие на те, что растут в наше время. Над болотами постоянно висел густой туман, насыщенный влагой. И темные тучи сплошь покрывали небо. Из них беспрерывно шли теплые ливни. В 21 небесной выси взблескивали ослепительные всполохи огненных молний, грохотали сильные грозы. Волглый воздух был насыщен испарениями и удушливым болотным газом. Только изредка сквозь мглу, да и то на короткий миг, пробивались солнечные лучи... В том сумрачном царстве дикой природы не было слышно ни рычания зверей, ни пения птиц. По деревьям и огромным травам ползали великаны-пауки, скорпионы, мокрицы... В болоте жили гигантские раки, преогромные, величиной с хату, лягушки... А еще, говорят, в тех болотах водились неимоверно большие, не похожие ни на какие других тварей, незримые крылатые ящеры. Их тело было прозрачное, как воздух, их невидимые жилы, вместо крови, были наполнены газом болотным. Они умели хорошо летать, однако болото оставляли лишь в кратковременную солнечную погоду. Газ, из которого состояло тело ящеров, легко воспламенялся. И горе тому из них, если в него ненароком попадала пусть и самая крохотная искорка молнии. Вмиг взрывался! В тот раз над всей здешней местностью непроницаемым пологом залегли густые тучи из края в край. Ни малейшего проблеска не было! Ливни с грозами не затихали на протяжении нескольких недель. Все живое замерло, притихло и затаилось. Глубоко в болоте, под толщами непролазной грязищи, распластались ящеры - подальше от беды. А тем временем крутые, высоченные морские волны начали затапливать и леса, не только болота. ... Прошло с тех пор немало лет, может, сотни тысяч. Море постепенно обмелело в здешних краях. А рухнувшие от воды деревья поглотились топями. И земле сделалось как бы душно под таким покровом. Она до того разогрелась изнутри, что в конце концов затряслась, как в лихорадке, из ее недр то в одном месте, то в другом стали вырываться наружу огненные столбы, раскаленные камни, которые постепенно остывали и образовывали холмы и горы. Со временем из поглощенного болотами леса, спрессованного до каменной твердости после того, как он истлел или переродился окончательно, возник сам по себе горючий камень. И залег пластами, как и наваливались друг на дружку деревья. А незримые ящеры - те, которых не уничтожил огонь, оказались сдавленными угольными пластами, и лежали там до поры до времени в почти безжизненной дреме. И вот настал час, когда тот солнечный камень потребовался людям для обогрева, плавки железной руды, и его стали добывать из подземелья. Тут-то и очнулись потревоженные хищные ящеры-чудища. Зашевелились своими незримыми газовыми телами, торкнулись в одну сторону, в другую, пытаясь освободиться из многовекового плена. Надавит чудище на пласт, и 22 преогромная глыба вывернется и ахнет в забой, где люди, или весь ящер в маленькую дырочку вместе с угольной пылью так и высвистнет из глубин и мором пройдет по углекопам - вповал падают те, кого не задавило до выброса газовых ящеров обломками каменного угля. А наткнется чудище на какой-нибудь огонек в шахте, тут и само взорвется, сотрясая подземелья и обрушивая породу из крепкого сланца и песчаника. Ужасное зрелище! На одной копи был уже опытный, повидавший виды шахтер. Вот он мараковал-мараковал и надумал, как изгнать зверя-невидимку из угольных пластов. Он взял с собой длинный шпур. Пробурил им в цельном пласте длинную узкую дыру, чтоб добраться до логова зверя-невидимки, а как только достал того, тот завертелся, как ужаленный, и мигом выскочил через ту дырку в забой. А тут его поджидал наготове мощный вентилятор. Завертел его так, что тот и опомниться не успел, как мощнейшая струя воздуха погнала на-гора и бесследно, до мельчайших его газовых клеточек, развеяла в степи Донецкой. Впоследствии кое-кто из суеверных старых шахтеров называл невидимое чудище еще и шахтерским чертом, жившим, по преданиям, в подземелье и мстившим углекопам за то, что потревожили его подземные покои. А больше он человеком обращался, потому как на самом деле был Хозяином подземных кладов, на которые посягнули люди. Оттого и свирепствовал под землей, громыхал по выработкам, свистел так, что уши закладывало, и пищал, и кукарекал, охал и вздыхал на всю свою пещерную пасть, отчего фуражки с углекопов будто ветром сдувало, фыркал в глаза угольной пылью, обрушивал породу и устраивал непроходимые завалы. Страха от него набрались углекопы - не приведи господь! И, таясь, немея до макушки в опаске пред ним, все же пытались разглядеть его в сумрачном подземном хозяйском царстве. Но где там! За ним было не угнаться - то здесь он чем-либо напомнит о себе, то там, а потом и затаится. Кто знает, может, и рядышком где прикорнул. В летах вроде был, и у него, кидать, с устатку ноги подкашивались. Однако находились смельчаки, которые уверяли, что видели его собственными глазами, даже чуть ли не схватили за седую бородищу, которая вслед за ним сивой гривой волочится. Такие-то, братцы, делишки. Самую малость бы - и вытащили б невидимку на свет божий! А поскольку он все время обитал в сыром подземелье, то постоянно ходил в шубе. От сырости она у него сплошь покрывалась мохнатой изморозью. И была такой же на вид седой, как и его пушистая борода. Оттого-то, должно, и прозвали его углекопы Шубиным. 23 И чуть что, припугивали им новичков или лодырей, или пьяниц горьких. Поговаривали, будто он страсть как не терпит сивушного духу - за версту чует! Потому и наказывает пьянчужек и нерадивцев. Россказней о нем ходило - заслушаешься, пока и волосы от страха на голове дыбом не встанут! А с болотным гремучим газом углекопы боролись поначалу не на живот, а что называется на смертную смерть. И своеобычным способом. Легенда о Шубине // Костыря И.С. Думы о Донбассе: В двух частях. – Донецк: Каштан, 2004. – С. 267-270. ЛЕГЕНДА О ШУБИНЕ. Донецкий ученый-фольклорист Петр Тимофеев записал из уст одного бывшего забойщика, потомственного горняка, такой сказ об этом. Было это давным-давно, еще при царе. Тогда в донецких степях только-только появились первые шахты. Были они совсем не такие, как сейчас. Уголек рубили обушком, лопатой грузили на сани, сани человек тащил на четвереньках за собой к штреку, там ссыпал в вагонетки, по штреку к шурфу вагонетки доставляли кони, потом уголь поднимали бадьями на-гора. Очень тяжелой и опасной была работа первых шахтеров. Далеко шла от донецких степей дурная слава об этой нелегкой, но лучше других оплачиваемой работе. И съезжался к шахтам на наем бедный рабочий люд. Богатеи - хозяева шахт - радовались: рабочих рук всегда в избытке, есть из чего выбрать. Но была на старых шахтах в те времена такая подземная специальность, на которую не всегда находился работник. И оплачивалась она дорого - десять золотых рублей, и работы той было на полчаса, а случись что, родня шахтера большие деньги за пострадавшего получала. Шли на эту работу самые отчаянные сорвиголовы, которым смерть - что сестра. Специальность эта называлась поджигатель, или газожег. Перед спуском смены поджигатель натягивал на себя побольше всякого мокрого тряпья, закутывал поплотнее голову и лез с факелом в шахту. Там он поджигал накопившийся угольный газ. Не однажды, бывало, смена находила поджигателя мертвым и выносила его на поверхность. У шахтеров обычай был такой - если погибнет кто под землей, его обязательно на-гора подымали, чтобы похоронить по-человечески. Работал в те времена на донецких шахтах поджигателем некий Шубин. Лихой был человек. Никого и ничего не боялся. Только однажды полез он очередной раз в шахту поджигать газ, да и погиб там под завалом. Хозяева шахты подсчитали, что если откапывать Шубина, то это выйдет им дорого. И стали уговаривать семью покойника вместо тела взять деньги. 24 Семья большая была, а без кормильца на что жить? Подумали, подумали, что уж от покойника проку, да и взяли деньги. Только с тех времен и по сей день, из поколения в поколение слышат шахтеры, как гремит в стенах камнями Шубин. Обозлился-де на людей. То выброс устроит, то обвал. Все товарищей себе ищет. I Каменный уголь! Казалось бы, самый неприглядный с виду среди множества драгоценных камней, какие ни на есть на всем белом свете - и черен, и пылен, и недолговечен по изъятии его из земных глубин... И добыча его сопряжена со смертельным риском... Да воспет он почище алмазов, почище золота! Легенда о Шубине // Костыря И.С. Думы о Донбассе: В двух частях. – Донецк: Каштан, 2004. – С. 269-270. Составитель: Бучковская Л.В., библиограф МБО ЦБС 25

Donetsk legends

Donetsk legends: from Scythian women to oil at the airport
Donetsk cannot boast of its venerable age and deep history. However, a century was enough for the mining capital to acquire the obligatory urban attribute - local myths. One can believe in them, or one can doubt them, but in any case it would be boring without them. We found the most popular legends, and also found out where urban myths come from.

According to Valery Stepkin, Donetsk ethnographer, Donetsk residents, relatively speaking, amuse themselves as best they can. “This is folk art, the same fairy tales, only the fairy tales are several hundred years old, and the Donetsk myths are dozens. Human nature demands fairy tales, demands to treat everything with humor, especially if there is a lot of negativity around. Look at Ukrainian history, literature, there is a lot of fun once, twice and too much, crying and sadness is continuous. And the people cannot be sad all the time, ”the local historian told us.

The sad residents of Donetsk have created an incredible number of myths and legends about their hometown. Not all of them have passed the test of time, but one of the first Donetsk myths, born in the era of Hughes - about the Good Shubin - a spirit living in a mine and predicting landslides - is still alive in the memory of Donetsk residents. “Everything connected with mines, darkness and uncertainty gives rise to myths,” explains Stepkin. - Recall at least the giant mutant rats, which were written about in the newspapers during perestroika, and yet people still believed the printed word at that time. The rumor about rats was born then and is still alive. "

The myths about mutant rats living in mines and eating breakfast with gaping miners are regularly supported by the miners themselves - either for the sake of laughter, or emphasizing the unpredictability and danger of hard work. However, perhaps, and indeed, someone saw something.

Urban myths are often overgrown with modern details. So, not long ago in trolleybuses they seriously discussed an oil well, accidentally discovered by builders in the area of ​​Donetsk airport. Oil allegedly gushes with a tight jet, and its reserves will last for hundreds of years. True, on the same day it turned out that the builders simply damaged the pipeline for pumping oil products with an excavator bucket, and the history of the Donetsk oil field ends there. However, the legends of how Donetsk nearly became an oil city tycoon are still being told to the younger generation.

“In big cities, myths are similar,” notes Valery Stepkin. - There will always be legends about underground bunkers under the buildings of administrations, about secret railway lines and underground passages under churches. People tend to believe in fairy tales. Even if they come up with them themselves. "

METRO FOR OFFICIALS

According to urban legends, under the "White House" there is a bunker and a railway line leading towards the Sea of ​​Azov. There is a train here that is in full readiness for evacuation. Say, the bunker was built in the 1980s and stretches to the street. Artyom.

IN WHAT HAND THE MINER'S CHARCOAL

Every full moon a miner - he is also a monument "Glory to the miner's labor" - from the Miner's Square in the Kiev region changes his hand, on which lies a huge piece of coal.

METRO DOES NOT COUNT DIAMONDS

According to legends, diamonds were found during the construction of the metro in Donetsk. However, geologists admit that such valuable stones could be in the bowels of Donbass.

VAMPIRES OF ALEXANDER

In the 1970s, after a series of murders in the DMZ area, rumors spread around Donetsk about vampires killing people and drinking the blood of innocent residents.

TERRICONS CHEAP

For several years, Donetsk residents have been retelling from mouth to mouth the legend that the Japanese offered to buy out all the waste heaps of Donbass and take them out of the region.

DONBASS: GODDESSES AND BOGATYR

Svyatogorye. According to epics, the heroes of Muromets and Svyatogor lived here. Photo: A. Glushkov

In the Donetsk region, myths and legends have, in the main, a historical background. So, there is a legend according to which the epic heroes Muromets and Svyatogor found a coffin on the chalk mountains of Svyatogorye and decided to "try on" it. On Ilya, he turned out to be too big, and Svyatogor came up and slammed on him. Ilya tried to cut the lid, but with each blow, iron hoops appeared on the coffin. I had to leave everything like that.

Legend has it that Svyatogor did not die, but fell asleep. Muromets made one mistake - he cut with his sword, and only the sword of Svarog, lying nearby, could break the lid. And this sword became a protection for the Holy Mountains until the day when there is no one who will find the "path between the ages", the coffin of Svyatogor and the sword and free a mighty defender who can drive out all evil spirits from Russia.

The residents of Donbass have a special attitude to stone sculptures - “Scythian women”. According to legend, Tabiti - the goddess of the hearth and family among the Scythians - created the first statues of "Scythian women" and settled in them the souls of those who died of unhappy love. In addition, she cast a love protection spell on them. If lovers quarrel nearby, the soul is released and punishes the culprit of the quarrel, then returning to the statue.

"Scythian women" must be conditionally "fed" with the help of special ceremonies, otherwise there will be no order and harmony in the house, but there will be plenty of disease and poverty. As reported on the Internet forums of the Donetsk people, if you accidentally injure yourself near the stone statues, then the blood will not go, and the wound will quickly heal.

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Donbass has recently been increasingly mentioned in connection with the difficult political situation in Ukraine. But this mountainous region is famous for many legends, most of which are associated with the local mines and catacombs.

Miner's ghost

So, a legend about a good spirit named Shubin is very popular, which helps miners, saving them from accidents. Most likely, Shubin is still not a name, but a surname. According to legend, this man lived at the end of the 19th century and was a gas burner by profession. That is, in modern terms, he was degassing the mines. Since there was practically no ventilation in the mines at that time, the burner put on a long sheepskin sheepskin coat soaked in water, entered the mine with a torch and metal it farther away, and meanwhile fell to the ground, covered with a sheepskin coat. If there was no gas or it was not enough, then the sheepskin coat saved the burner. But sometimes there was a violent explosion. Moreover, the owners of the mine development were entirely foreigners, and they did not care too much about the safety of local workers.

One of the versions says that Shubin was one of those who were not lucky enough to die in a mine from a methane explosion ... Another is more interesting. They say that Shubin did not get along with the German owner. His character was conflicting, quarrelsome, and the German constantly oppressed the miners. And once Shubin appeared to the owner drunk and started such a conversation with him: "By what right do you drink our miner's blood?" He, of course, replied: "I am the owner, I do what I want!" “Oh, master? - answered Shubin. "Well, then I'll show you who the real boss is." The Scorcher left, and after that, no one else saw him alive. They said that he either died a natural death, or got drunk into the mine and deliberately blew it up and himself at the same time.

And since then they began to see him from time to time here and there ... The spirit of Shubin appears in front of the miners to take them out from under the rubble or warn of some danger. True, according to another version, he, on the contrary, scares the miners and can even fill up or flood the mine. Shubin dwells as if in distant or abandoned mine workings. Those who believe in this spirit call it respectfully - "master" ...

Diamonds instead of the subway

Another "underground" legend of Donbass is associated with diamonds. Once, back in the Soviet era, they were going to build a subway in Donetsk, but nothing came of it. There were rumors that the construction was frozen due to the discovery of a deposit of large diamonds during the laying of the first metro lines. It seems that there were even eyewitnesses who claimed that the stones were the size of a quail's egg.

However, knowledgeable people say that diamonds are indeed “found” in Donbass. They were first found long before the revolution. But for some unknown reason, they did not develop the field. The tsarist government let everything down, but no private investors were found.

Mutants near Mariupol

In the Donbass city of Mariupol there are underground caves, which the locals call "adit" or "nursery". According to rumors, during the Soviet era, the KGB equipped secret laboratories in the local underground, where they allegedly studied the effects of radiation on people and animals.

Local old-timers willingly share with journalists and researchers legends about the catacombs. One of them, named Roman, recalls the stories of his grandfather that in the 50s and 60s of the last century, a secret object was located in artificial caves stretching for many kilometers. Although the area was fenced in with barbed wire, rumors were leaking out. The most popular myth was about mutants who were "taken out" in secret KGB laboratories.

The mutants allegedly visited the nearby villages - Chermalyk and Granitnoe from time to time.

Hooligans somehow got into the habit of throwing stones on the roof of one woman - they beat the slate, - says Vladimir, a resident of the village of Chermalyk. - She complained to her son. Gathered, it means that the older guys are sitting at home, waiting to teach the hooligans a lesson, and it's already night in the yard. They hear how the gate creaked, then a knock on the roof, well, they rushed after the unknown, and he in the reeds - and began to run away across the field in the direction of the adit. In general, they drove the bastard into the clearing, they shine with a flashlight - there is a shadow, but there is no man!

The same Vladimir claims that with his own eyes he saw giant snakes near the adit. He recalls:

One evening my father and I were driving a car, and then father, cursing, hit the brakes sharply. We thought that some clever guy put a thick hose across the road, with a diameter of somewhere like a fire hose, the car already jumped when it was run over. We stopped to remove this "hose". We get out of the car, look, and he winds like a loach along the road, hisses - and in the direction of the "Nursery". We jumped into the car - and on the gas ...

It was as if strange rodents, similar to rats, were observed near the object. Still, these were not rats, but giant insects that from time to time crawled into local gardens, frightening the owners with their size.

And here is what Igor Krinichny from Granitnoye told:

Several years ago, to argue with my comrades, I climbed into the right cave. The condition was to be photographed against the far wall. I made my way into the depths with a lighter, there was no visibility, respectively. I barely saw where to put my foot. After 200 meters some rustle was heard. I stopped to take a closer look, raised the lighter higher, and it shocked me like an electric shock - two huge eyes looked at me, like those of an insect. I tore what was urine, and this creature hissed - and behind me, you could hear how she moved the stones with her body.

However, according to another version, there were no laboratories near Mariupol, but there was a uranium mine. Although one does not interfere with the other. If there is uranium, then it is clear where the radiation and mutants came from! According to one former party official, mining equipment was being tested there. After the collapse of the USSR, there was no question of any secrecy, the catacombs were abandoned, and local bandits set up a shooting range there.

Finds of stalkers

Today from the catacombs there is only a small section at the very entrance with a length of 400 meters. The rest of the tunnels are concreted. Mariupol stalkers often visit there. According to these "hunters", they have come across curious finds in caves more than once - for example, the remains of unknown equipment. And one day they stumbled upon a wedding dress cut from the 1970s and 1980s. How it got into this eerie place is a mystery. Has anyone decided to play a wedding here? By the way, in the same place, in the catacombs, someone's summer shoe without a pair was discovered - apparently from the same time as the dress.

Of course, it is not complete without mysticism. Stalker Zakhar Berkut assures that he and his comrades managed to photograph a ghost in one of the caves.

We left the camera here for a long exposure, and in the picture at the end of the tunnel, we can clearly see the silhouette of a person, although we know that there was no one there, '' he recalls. The most interesting thing is that later the sensational picture mysteriously disappeared from the photo archive.

Local schoolchildren have a tradition of organizing celebrations near the catacombs on their graduation day. It was there that the next "ghostly" episode happened.

At the graduation party, my brother and his classmates came here, walked in the clearing and in the undergrowth, - says Vladimir from Chermalyk. - Someone offered to take a collective photo, and everyone stood in a crowd. Imagine our surprise when a pale face of a stranger was found in one of the pictures behind the group.

Maybe these are the ghosts of the prisoners who built the catacombs? Or the same mutants? Who knows, suddenly radiation is capable of turning people into phantoms? One way or another, unlike young people, older residents, just in case, bypass the former secret object ...

Dina Kuntseva

Water on earth is in continuous motion - in a cycle. About 425 thousand cubic kilometers of water evaporate annually from the surface of land, seas and oceans.

From the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth, water returns again in the form of precipitation, forming underground and surface streams, which, connecting with each other, give life to rivers and lakes.

The remarkable Soviet scientist, Academician AP Karpinsky said: "There is no more precious fossil than water."

Water is a huge national wealth of our country. Numerous canals, like arteries, feed thousands of hectares of land with water, transforming the arid steppe into a fertile land. In greenhouses, vegetables can be successfully grown without land at all, on aqueous solutions of mineral salts, which are mostly part of the soil. The most valuable gift of "blue cornfields" is fish. With the help of a water jet of water monitors, which under high pressure becomes harder than steel, coal is mined in the face.

The well-known Russian writer ST Aksakov in his "Notes of a Rifle Hunter" wrote about water as follows: "Everything is good in nature, but water is the beauty of all nature. The water is alive; she runs or flutters in the wind; it moves and gives life and movement to everything around it. "

Rivers and lakes, the sunny Azov Sea region have become favorite places of recreation for the working people of Donbass. In such corners there are sanatoriums and rest houses.

The role of water in human life is growing, therefore the rational use and protection of Donbass water resources is one of the urgent problems.

The internal waters of the Donetsk basin include rivers, lakes, groundwater, artificial reservoirs (ponds, reservoirs) and canals.

Blue arteries

The hydrographic network of Donbass has been formed for a long time with close connection with climatic conditions, the history of geological development and the geological structure of the territory, terrain, vegetation cover, and human economic activity; it is distributed unevenly. Along with the Donetsk ridge, which has a well-developed river network (0.20-0.42 kilometers per square kilometer), there are areas in the northern Zadonetsk and southern Azov parts, where it is thinned (0.09-0.19 kilometers per square kilometer) , is poorly developed, and some areas are completely devoid of rivers.

Rivers often start from imperceptible streams, where underground waters come to the surface - in the ravines and gullies of the Donetsk ridge, the Azov Upland and the southern slopes of the Central Russian Upland. Their origins lie mainly at altitudes of 280-320 meters above sea level. The direction of the river valleys is determined by the peculiarities of the terrain orography and the complex fold-fault structure of the Donetsk ridge.

With a rapid current, according to the slope of the earth's surface, the rivers collect atmospheric precipitation from a certain area, which is called a drainage basin.

The river valleys are asymmetric, with a steep high right and low, more gentle left slope. The floodplains (flooded during floods) in the upper reaches are 20-50 meters wide, in the lower reaches they reach 1000-2000 meters, mostly dry, in places swampy, covered with meadow and marsh vegetation, in some places with shrubs, less often with forests. The river beds are meandering.

Meeting obstacles on their way (solid rocks of the Donetsk ridge), the rivers deviate from the straight path, form meanders, numerous wide bends - meanders, which, gradually being separated by river sediments from new channels, turn into lakes - oxbows, and over time (overgrowing) - into the swamps.

Meanders and oxbows are characteristic not only of the Seversky Donets, but also of its main tributaries - Aydar, Derkul, Krasnaya, Kazenny Torets, Bolshaya Kamenka, Stallion, Borovoy.

The regime of rivers is largely determined by the climate, characterized by a pronounced spring flood and low summer low-water period - a period of low water level in the river at the end of the flood, - which is often disturbed by rain floods. It is not without reason that the outstanding Russian climatologist A. I. Voeikov considered rivers “as a product of climate”.

There are cases when in the summer period individual rivers dry up partially or completely, and it is no coincidence that some of them are called "dry" (Dry Volnovakha, Dry Yaly).

The main role in the feeding of the Donbass rivers belongs to snow and, to a lesser extent, rain waters. They receive more or less stable year-round food from the inflow of groundwater.

The rivers of Donbass are shallow. The distribution of runoff (the amount of water that a river carries out into the sea or a closed lake in a year) is very uneven over the seasons. Most of it falls in the spring, which can be traced to the example of Aydar and Lugan, where spring accounts for 60 and 56 percent, respectively, summer and autumn - 35 and 30 percent, and winter - 5 and 14 percent of the annual flow.

In winter, rivers hide under blue ice. Ice formation begins in late November - early December. The longest duration of stable freeze-up is 153 days (winter 1953/54), the shortest - 6 days (winter 1947/48).

The rivers usually open up in the second half of March; the earliest ice drift was observed on Aydar (post Belolutsk) on January 11, 1955, the latest - on April 11 on the Seversky Donets (post Lisichansk).

The largest river in the Donbass is the Seversky Donets - the right tributary of the Don. It originates in a treeless area of ​​the Central Russian Upland, near the village of Lisichki, at an altitude of 213 meters above sea level. The length of the river is 1,053 kilometers, the catchment area is 98,800 square kilometers. For 325 kilometers it flows through the territory of the northern outskirts of the Donetsk ridge, bending around its positive structures.

The wide valley of the Seversky Donets abounds in places of old rivers and small lakes. Its banks are asymmetrical: the right one is high and steep, it is picturesque, the left one is gentle with several terraces, peculiar aeolian landforms (created under the influence of the wind). The sands are now successfully fixed by peels and pine trees, and are turning into productive lands. A state forest protection belt runs along the banks of the river.

Seversky Donets is of great economic importance. For domestic and drinking water supply, the water of the Krasnooskolsk and Pechenezh reservoirs is used.

The Voroshilovgradskaya TPP, one of the largest in the USSR, "drinks" a lot of water. Water is widely used: for generating steam, with the help of which turbines are driven, as well as for cooling - steam condensation.

Severskiy Donets is navigable only in the lower part. Further reconstruction of the river, in the past a well-known waterway, will open up prospects for the development of shipping within the Voroshilovgrad and Donetsk regions.

On the banks of the Seversky Donets, there are beautiful beaches, wonderful pine and mixed forests in which health resorts are located.

The Seversky Donets is especially majestic in the Artem Mountains region. This is one of the few areas where the relict chalk pine has been preserved.

In addition to the Seversky Donets, the relatively large rivers of the Donets Basin also include its tributaries - Aydar, Derkul, Krasnaya, Kazenny Torets, Lugan, Bakhmutka, Bolshaya Kamenka, as well as rivers directly flowing into the Sea of ​​Azov - Mius, Kalmius, Gruzsky Elanchik. On the western slopes of the Donetsk ridge, there are the upper reaches of the Samara and Volch'ya rivers, which belong to the basin of the Lower Dnieper.

Aydar- the largest tributary of the Seversky Donets within the boundaries of Donbass. It originates from the krinitsa on the Central Russian Upland near the village of Dranovka, Belgorod Region. Numerous sources of chalk deposits on the slopes near the krinitsa merge into 14 large streams and take part in feeding the formed river. The length of Aydar is 256 kilometers, of which 206 kilometers flows within the Voroshilovgrad region; catchment area - 7370 square kilometers.

The river flows through a wide valley with an extensive floodplain (up to 2-3 kilometers in the lower reaches), developed mainly along the left bank. The prevailing width of Aydar is 10-20 meters, in some places it reaches 100 meters, the depth varies from 0.4 meters on rifts to 7.2 meters on stretches. The right slope of the river valley is predominantly high, steep in many places, dissected by numerous ravines and gullies, the left is gentle, with well-defined terraces. The channel is highly winding.

Derkul- the left tributary of the Seversky Donets. It originates from springs located in a gully north of the village of Markovka at an altitude of 120 meters above sea level. The river is 165 kilometers long, the basin area is more than 5100 square kilometers.

The Derkul basin is located on the southeastern slopes of the Central Russian Upland and is characterized by a moderately developed river network. The river flows in an asymmetric valley with a width of 2 to 5 kilometers, its right slope is high and steep, indented by deep ravines, the left one is gentle, low-lying, in places covered with moving sands.

The river bed is laid in a wide (0.4-2.5 km) floodplain with oxbows, shallow lakes, and sometimes swamps. The channel width in the upper and middle reaches is 10-20 meters, in the lower it reaches 30 meters.

The main part of the runoff (75 percent) occurs in the spring, the summer-autumn runoff is 15 percent, and the winter runoff is 10 percent of the annual.

Red originates from springs near the village of Timikova at an altitude of 104 meters above sea level and flows into the Seversky Donets on the left, 454 kilometers from the mouth. The length of the river is 131 kilometers, the catchment area is 2,710 square kilometers.

The river network of the Krasnaya basin is poorly and unevenly developed. Its upper part is characterized by a relatively dense river network, which decreases significantly towards the lower reaches.

The river flows in a deep (in some places up to 70 meters) valley. The prevailing width of the floodplain is 1-2 kilometers, the maximum is 5 kilometers (near the mouth). The right slope is mostly high and steep, indented by ravines, the left one is lower and gently sloping. The floodplain is mainly meadow, in places shrub. The river bed is moderately meandering, unstable, the bottom is clay-sandy.

Treasury Butt- the right tributary of the Seversky Donets. It originates in the northwestern part of the Donetsk ridge at an altitude of 180 meters above sea level. The length of the river is 129 kilometers, the basin area is 5410 square kilometers. The prevailing width of the valley is 3-4 kilometers, the floodplain is 400-600 meters, the channel is 10-15 meters. In the middle reaches, it receives two large tributaries: on the right - Krivoy Torets, on the left - Sukhoi Torets.

The slopes of the river valley are mostly steep, steep in places. Here, from limestones, chalk marls and fissured chalk, springs emerge on the day surface, which play an important role in feeding the river.

Luhanka (Lugan)- the right tributary of the Seversky Donets. It originates from the springs of the Lugan gully at an altitude of 260 meters above sea level. The length of the river is 196 kilometers, the catchment area is 3670 square kilometers.

The Lugani basin lies on the northern slopes of the Donetsk ridge and has a well-developed river network, consisting of 22 rivers more than 10 kilometers long, many rivers shorter than 10 kilometers, a large number of ravines and gullies without a constant flow of water.

The river valley is clearly defined. Its width is very uneven (from 1 to 5 kilometers). The left slope of the valley in the lower and middle reaches of the Lugan is higher and steeper throughout the entire length, crossed by deep ravines and gullies. The right slope is sloping, weakly dissected.

The floodplain is mainly two-sided. Its width increases towards the lower reaches. In the upper reaches, in some areas, the floodplain is completely absent. The river bed is very winding, the width varies from 0.5 to 40 meters (at the mouth section). A number of large reservoirs have been built in the valleys of the river and its tributaries.

Reconstruction (clearing and embankment of the river, construction of a dam, embankments with boat stations) and improvement of Lugani is of great economic and cultural importance. The river will turn into a resting place for residents of Voroshilovgrad.

Luganchik- the right tributary of the Seversky Donets. It originates in the northern part of the Donetsk ridge from springs located near the Kolpakov railway station, at an altitude of 320 meters above sea level and flows into the Seversky Donets 291 kilometers from its mouth. The length of the river is 83 kilometers, the catchment area is 659 square kilometers, the drop is 3.5 meters per kilometer. There are very few forests, lakes and swamps here. Wetlands are found in places where groundwater flows out.

The river valley is unclear, its average width is 2-3 kilometers, the maximum is up to 6 kilometers (below the village of Novo-Annovka), its depth is 80-90 centimeters. The left slope is steep (50-60 meters in height), indented by ravines and gullies, the right one is mostly gentle.

The floodplain is bilateral, meadow, dry; its prevailing width is 300-500 meters. The channel is slightly tortuous, in the upper reaches it is narrow (about 3 meters), in the middle and lower reaches it constantly increases to 5-8 meters. In the summer-autumn long low-water period, there are cases of drying up of the river in some of its parts.

Bakhmutka- the right tributary of the Seversky Donets. It originates from the swampy depression of the northern slopes of the Donetsk ridge, located at an altitude of 235 meters above sea level.

The river is 86 kilometers long, the basin area is 1680 square kilometers. The prevailing width of the valley is 1.5-2.5 kilometers, the floodplain is 200 meters, the channel is 2-4 meters (the maximum is 30 meters). The slopes of the valley are moderately steep, steep in places. Now the river is being reconstructed within the city of Artemovsk, its channel has been cleared.

Bolshaya Kamenka- the right tributary of the Seversky Donets. It originates on the northeastern slopes of the Donetsk ridge at an altitude of 320 meters above sea level. The river is 110 kilometers long, the basin area is 1810 square kilometers. The river basin network is well developed.

The river valley in the upper reaches is relatively narrow (300-500 meters), in the lower its width increases to 3-4 kilometers. Almost along its entire length, the left slope is steeper, steep, indented by deep ravines, the right one is gentle, in places of sandstone outcrops it is often steep and steep. The floodplain is meadow, dry, mainly two-sided, in some places it is completely absent. Its width increases from 100 to 500 meters.

The riverbed, with the exception of the upper reaches, is winding and abounds in rifts. Its width at the source is 0.5 meters, downstream it increases to 5 meters, and in some reaches reaches 50. The annual flow is distributed extremely unevenly. In the spring period it is 60 percent, in the summer-autumn period - 30 percent, in the winter - 10 percent.

Mius- the largest river in the Azov region. It originates on the southern slopes of the Donetsk ridge at an altitude of 263 meters above sea level. With its upper and partly middle course (over 100 kilometers), it flows through the territory of Donbass. It has a length of 316 kilometers (of which 40 kilometers is the estuary). The basin area is 6680 square kilometers, it flows into the Miussky estuary of the Azov Sea.

The width of the valley within the Donetsk basin is from 200 meters to 1.2 kilometers, the floodplain is 50-800 meters. The river valley is deep, the slopes are steep, steep in places, with frequent outcrops of dense Carboniferous and Cretaceous rocks.

On the right, the Mius receives its main tributary - Krynka (length - 180 kilometers, basin area - 2,634 square kilometers), on the left - Nagolnaya (length - 28 kilometers).

Kalmius- originates on the southern slope of the Donetsk ridge at an altitude of 240 meters above sea level, flows into the Sea of ​​Azov. Its length is 209 kilometers, the area of ​​the basin is 5070 square kilometers. The width of the valley varies from 100 meters to 2.2 kilometers, the floodplain - from 150 meters to 3 kilometers, the channel - from 1 to 80 meters. The Verkhne-Kalmiusskoye reservoir was built on the river.

The Kalmius River cuts deeply into the dense rocks of the Azov crystalline massif, in places it forms rapids and waterfalls. The river valley is asymmetrical, with a high, steep right slope and a low one on the left. The channel is highly winding.

Gruzskoy Elanchik originates on the eastern spurs of the Azov Upland at an altitude of 120 meters above sea level. The length is 91 kilometers, the area of ​​the basin is 1250 square kilometers. The width of the valley is about 2.5 kilometers, the floodplain is 200-400 meters, the channel is 10 meters. Almost along the entire length, the right slope is steep, the left one is mostly gentle.

The river is fed mainly by melted snow waters. Rainwater and groundwater supply is of secondary importance.

River water is used for irrigating vegetable gardens, watering cattle and household needs of the population.

Samara- the left tributary of the Dnieper. It originates on the western slopes of the Donetsk ridge at an altitude of 160 meters above sea level. Its length is 311 kilometers, for 50 kilometers it flows through the territory of the Donetsk region.

Wolf- left tributary of Samara. It originates from the springs of the Volchya gully near the Volchie farm, on the western outskirts of the Donetsk ridge, at an altitude of 165 meters above sea level. The length of the river is 323 kilometers (of which only 115 kilometers fall on the territory of the Donetsk region, the rest - on the Dnepropetrovsk region). The basin area is 13 320 square kilometers.

Of the tributaries of the Volch'ya, flowing within the boundaries of the described territory, the left one - Sukhiye Yaly and the right one - Solyonaya should be noted. Over a considerable length of time, they dry up in the summer, forming stretches in the form of lakes.

Lakes

There are few lakes in the Donbass, almost all of them are small, freshwater and shallow. By their origin, most of them are old rivers - the remains of former riverbeds (oxbow lakes), scattered in the floodplains of the Seversky Donets valley and other relatively large rivers. Such, for example, is Lake Belyaevskoye, shimmering with a quiet blue color, located in the floodplain of the Seversky Donets on the territory of the Slavyanoserbsky district of the Voroshilovgrad region. This wetland-forest reservoir, like many other floodplain lakes, is nourished mainly by groundwater and atmospheric precipitation.

There are other floodplain lakes near Belyaevskoe lake: Eagle, Krasnokutskoe, Zimovnoe, Podpesochnoe, Bolshoi Liman. In some dry years, the area of ​​the water surface of these lakes decreases, they dry up at the edges, which is due to the plowing of the slopes of the lake hollows, silting of springs, and the lack of their connection with the Seversky Donets.

In terms of size and beauty, one can single out the oxbow lakes Krasny Liman and Bankovskoe - the largest of the floodplain lakes of the Seversky Donets; Glubokoe, Zakotnyanskoe, Plavnevoe and Sukhoye, located in the Aydar floodplain.

In the Slavyansk region, in the Kamenny Torets river basin, there are the famous salt lakes Slepnoe, Repnoe, Veisovo (Mayatskoe). Their origin is associated with long-term karst processes, the activity of underground waters, which, while circulating, leached readily soluble salt layers. The overlying rocks fell into the formed voids, the surface of the earth sagged.

Karst funnel-shaped dips are still known here. So, in 1952, a sinkhole formed near a salt-processing plant. There were two residential buildings here. After discovering the cracks, residents managed to leave for another area of ​​the city. A few hours later, the houses collapsed and in their place was a crater ten meters deep.

Lakes Repnoe (area 32 hectares) and Slepnoe (30 hectares) have a length of 800-850 meters, a width of 300-350 meters, an average depth of 2.5-3.5 meters, a maximum depth of up to 6.4 meters, the salt concentration is 2.5-8 percent. Lake Veisovo (Mayatskoye) is smaller in size (area 0.1 square kilometer), 400 meters long and 250 meters wide. In the lakes Repnoe and Slepnoe there are significant reserves of high-quality silt mud. Dirt formation with the help of microorganisms continues today.

The healing properties of Slavic salt lakes have been known for a long time. In 1832, soldiers from the Chuguevsky hospital were treated here.

During the years of Soviet power, the Slavic resort, well-known throughout the country, was created.

On the territory of the “New Carthage” brine field in the Artyomovsk district of the Donetsk region there is a group of lakes of anthropogenic salt karst, the intensive formation of which continues to this day. So, the formation of lakes with a depth of 6-8 meters in the sinkholes of the karst landslide was observed in 1956, 1958, 1964.

Along the coast of the Sea of ​​\ u200b \ u200bAzov, there are peculiar lakes-estuaries: Belosarayskoye with an area of ​​about 1 square kilometer (on the Belosaraiskaya Spit), Liman (an area of ​​more than 1.6 square kilometers), located east of the mouth of the Gruzkaya Elanchik River, and others.

Freshwater transparent lakes are usually rich in fish, and artificial fish farming is also developed in them. The lacustrine silt not only of the Slavic salt lakes, but also of the estuaries of the Azov region is used as highly effective therapeutic mud.

The groundwater

In the pores, voids and cracks of the rocks of the earth's crust, water circulates, which are called "underground". They are formed by the seepage into the ground of rain and melted snow water, as well as the waters of rivers and streams.

The direction of movement of groundwater depends on the slope of the impermeable layer underlying the aquifers. In those places where natural outflows of groundwater are observed on the day surface (mainly along river valleys, gullies, ravines), springs are formed.

Groundwater aquifers of Donbass and adjacent territories are found in sediments of various ages. These include: the upper water horizon (verkhovodka), confined to sandy lenses in the thickness of anthropogenic loams; waters of alluvial deposits; Neogene and Paleogene horizons; waters of the fissured zone of the chalk-marl strata (from here high-quality drinking water enters many cities and industrial centers); aquifers of carboniferous sandstones and limestones, among which a powerful horizon of fractured-karst waters of the southwestern outskirts of Donbass stands out; groundwaters of the fractured weathering zone of crystalline rocks of the Precambrian of the Azov Sea.

Groundwater is of great importance in nature, human life and economic activity, it is widely used (especially the waters of the Upper Cretaceous horizon and the Carboniferous strata of the Lower Carboniferous) in industry, domestic water supply. They provide life-giving moisture to collective and state farm fields, and are a constant source of nutrition for numerous rivers and lakes.

The bowels of the Donetsk basin and adjacent territories (within the boundaries of Voroshilovgrad and Donetsk regions) have significant mineral water resources. The workers of Donbass rightly call Starobelsk healing mineral waters the elixir of health. On the basis of a source of bromine chloride-sodium water in Starobelsk, a regional hydropathic establishment was opened.

Not far from Starobelsk there is also a source of sodium chloride bromine water. There is a sanatorium-preventorium "Sosnovy" here.

The "Lugansk" mineral water is also of great value. By its chemical composition, it is close to narzan, is not much inferior to highly mineralized "Slavyakovskaya" water and has a weak radioactivity. It is widely used both for medicinal purposes and as table water.

In recent years, mineral water deposits have been discovered in the area of ​​the Lysaya Gora and Veselaya Gora rest homes, in the village of Liman, Starobelsky district and near the village of Novopskov (belongs to the group of sodium chloride type “Mirgorodskaya”, the water was named: “Aydarskaya”) Voroshilovgrad region.

Among the mineral medicinal and table waters of the Donetsk region deserve a lot of attention "Khanzhenkovskaya" water, the well of which is located near the village of Khanzhenkovo ​​(ferrous, thermal water); "Beshevskaya" water of the "Izhevsk" type, in the steppe near the state farm "Beshevsky", "Golden Well" in the Dobropolsky district (table water); "Slavyanogorsk" mineral water of the "Polyustrovo" type, located on the territory of the Slavyanogorsk resort; "Slavyanovskaya" on the territory of the Slavic resort, mineral water is used in the form of baths, showers, irrigation, inhalations; "Velikoanadolskaya" type "Kashinskaya", on the southeastern end of the Velikoanadolskoye forestry, is used for balneological treatment and medicinal drinking.

Reservoirs

A colossal mass of precious fresh water, so necessary for a person in his economic activity, "in transit" passes through the territory of Donbass, is discharged into the seas.

For the regulation and rational use of fresh water in river beds and depressions of the earth's surface, artificial reservoirs are created with a huge supply of water - reservoirs.

The largest reservoirs of the Donetsk basin, accumulating local runoff, regulating floods, include Mironovskoye on Lugan, Donetskoye on Kalmius, Zuevskoye and Khanzhenkovskoye on Krynka, Karlovskoye and Kurakhovskoye on Volchya, Starokrymskoye on Kalchik, Kramatorskoye on Kazenny Torts, Kleban-Bytsevskoye other.

The reservoirs are rich in fish. There is commercial fishing for carp, pike perch, crucian carp (hybrid). The shores are fortified with green spaces, which make them picturesque corners of nature.

Ponds

Donbass has significant areas of ponds belonging to collective farms, state farms, state fish farms. These small reservoirs are created in river valleys, natural depressions (in the headlands of ravines, ravines) for the retention and storage of mainly surface runoff waters. They are filled with snow, rain and underground waters. In Donetsk and Voroshilovgrad regions there are more than 1,700 of them with a total area of ​​the water surface of over 9 thousand hectares, including the Donetsk fish processing plant has about 1900 hectares of ponds, the Stanichno-Lugansk section of the Voroshilovgrad fish processing plant owns 840 hectares of the mirror surface of the ponds.

Pond water is used for irrigation, water supply for livestock farms, fish and waterfowl breeding. The ponds are an excellent resting place for workers.

An example of the rational use of ponds for the cultivation of marketable fish are the Donetsk Order of the Red Banner of Labor Fish Factory and the Stanichno-Lugansk section of the Voroshilovgrad Industrial Fish Factory.

In the ponds of the Donetsk fish processing plant, created in the floodplains of small rivers - Golaya Dolina and Mayachki - near the city of Slavyansk, a high fish productivity is achieved - over 2350 kilograms per hectare, and on the advanced links - 3570 kilograms per hectare. The fishing sites of Donrybokombinat are located in Slavyansky, Aleksandrovsky, Konstantinovsky, Artemovsky and Krasnolimansky districts of Donetsk region.

The Stanichno-Lugansk section of the Voroshilovgrad fish production plant annually sells over 12 thousand centners of carp, grass carp and silver carp.

Channels

For the transfer of water from water intakes on rivers to areas of its consumption (settlements, industrial and agricultural enterprises), artificially dug channels - canals are important.

Donbass needs huge quantities of fresh water. Commissioned in 1959, the Seversky Donets - Donbass canal (now being reconstructed) was built in a short time in a highly rugged terrain, uninterruptedly carries the waters of the reservoirs created on the Seversky Donets along an artificial channel with a length of over 125 kilometers to the large industrial centers of Donbass.

But this canal only partially quenched the thirst of the edge of coal, chemistry, metal, and the industrial Donbass was forced to turn to the gray-haired Dnieper for help - a powerful source of water supply. In 1970, construction began on the Dnieper-Donbass canal, 263 kilometers long, 20 to 80 meters wide and 4-5 meters deep. It originates from the Dneprodzerzhinsky reservoir on the Dnieper. From here, his further path will pass through the floodplains and channels of many rivers.

The canal under construction is a complex engineering hydraulic structure that has no equal.

To bring the Dnieper water to Donbass, 12 powerful pumping stations will raise it to a height of 65 meters in comparison with the level of the Dniprodzerzhinsky reservoir. From the huge reservoir (with a capacity of about 410 million cubic meters), which is being built near the village of Krasnopavlovka, Lozovsky district, Kharkov region, the waters of the Dnieper will move by gravity to the Seversky Donets, with branches to the large industrial centers of Donbass.

Mighty streams (about 125 cubic meters per second) of mirror-like clean Dnieper water will rush along the wide channel of the artificial river. Voroshilovgrad region alone will receive more than one billion cubic meters of it. Dnieper water should come to Donbass in 1977.

The construction of the Dnieper-Donbass canal - a shock Komsomol construction project - will be a vivid example of the victory of advanced Soviet science, first-class domestic technology, and the labor feat of the Soviet people. This gigantic construction site will provide many enterprises in Donbass with water, and will allow more land to be watered.

The area of ​​irrigated land in Donetsk region in 1976 was more than 125 thousand hectares. In Voroshilovgrad region, respectively - 73.7 thousand and 101.2 thousand hectares will be in 1980. Where does the huge supply of fresh water come from to meet these needs? In the Donetsk region, it consists of 23 percent of river water, 58 percent of ponds, 12 of a reservoir, 4 of the Seversky Donets - Donbass canal, 3 of mine wastewater and other waters.

Further successful industrial development and intensification of agriculture in Donbass are inherently associated with a significant increase in fresh water consumption. More than 250 tons of water are required for the production of one ton of steel alone, and 1500 tons of water are consumed to obtain one ton of wheat from irrigated lands.

The problem of water supply to the Donetsk Basin in the coming years can be solved by preserving and regulating the flow, rational use and protection of water resources, construction of the Dnieper - Donbass canal.

Azov sea

The Sea of ​​Azov (in ancient times, the Surozh Sea) is located on the southern edge of the East European Plain and is an inland sea of ​​the Atlantic Ocean basin, a kind of bay of the Black Sea, which is connected to it by the Kerch Strait 3-15 kilometers wide. The Azov Sea is the smallest in area - 38 thousand square kilometers.

Its shores are mostly low-lying, steep in the northern part (up to 50 meters high). A characteristic feature of the northern coast of the sea is the development of sand-shell spits (on the territory of Donetsk region - Belosaraiskaya, Krivaya), which are far out into the sea. In the western part of the Sea of ​​\ u200b \ u200bAzov, there is a narrow spit - the Arabat arrow (112 kilometers long), separating the vast salt lagoon Sivash from the sea.

Of the bays, the largest is Taganrog Bay, about 140 kilometers long. It is located in the northeastern part of the Sea of ​​Azov, separated from the sea by the Belosaraiskaya and Dolgaya spits. Recently in Taganrog, during the construction of the embankment, a mammoth tooth was extracted from the bottom of the bay, which lived in the Azov Sea region in the second half of the Ice Age.

Two large rivers - Don and Kuban - carry their waters to the Sea of ​​Azov. The rest of the rivers are small - Mius, Kalmius, Berda and others. Some of them, when confluent, form estuaries.

The total continental runoff of fresh water into the Sea of ​​Azov averages 40.7 cubic kilometers per year, the annual precipitation is 15.5 cubic kilometers. Water loss due to evaporation is 31 cubic kilometers per year. As a result, the total intake of fresh water is 56.2, and the discharge is 31 cubic kilometers.

The Azov Sea is the shallowest on Earth. Its average depth is 8.5 meters, the maximum is 14 meters. The volume of the mass of water exceeds 320 cubic kilometers.

The shallowness (even the weakest excitement mixes the water), the flow of muddy river water, the rapid development of the smallest organisms and various types of algae in the warm season cause extremely insignificant transparency and a peculiar color of the Azov Sea water.

The climate of the Sea of ​​Azov differs little from the continental climate of the surrounding land. Winters are relatively harsh here, summers are mild. The average air temperature in July is +24 degrees, the maximum is +40 degrees. In winter, frosts reach -30 degrees.

In the summer, in the shallow sea, there is a rapid heating, and in winter, the entire mass of water is strongly cooled. The average annual water temperature on the surface is + 11.5 degrees. The summer maximum reaches +32 degrees, in winter the water temperature drops to 0 degrees and below. Off the coast, the sea freezes every year. During the cold season, the open part of the sea is filled with floating ice.

The salinity of the Azov Sea water on average is about 12 ppm, near the Kerch Strait it increases to 17 ppm, and in the Taganrog Bay it is only 2-3 ppm.

The main circular current is directed counterclockwise. Surface currents are very unstable and often change with a change in the direction of the prevailing winds (northeast winds prevail). From the strengthening or weakening of the wind in shallow sea conditions, the roughness changes very quickly. The waves of Azov are short and steep, which is dangerous when sailing.

L. Ya.Apostolov (1926) gives a description of one of the storms on the Sea of ​​Azov:

“On the Azov coast, hurricanes are possible, of which the most devastating was on March 13, 1913, when almost all coastal settlements from Temryuk to the mouths of the Doka River, located on spits and shoals, fish factories and a temporary railway line were under water ... and small ones were defeated, many were thrown far inland into the fields. The villages on the sand spits jutting into the sea have been completely destroyed. According to rough estimates, up to 3,000 people died on the coast in the Azov villages and in the fishing settlements. "

The Azov Sea is home to 350 species of animals, fish are represented by 79 forms. This is a true pearl of our country, one of the most productive seas on the globe.

Human economic activity in the basin of the Azov Sea every year reduces the inflow of fresh water into the sea. Its deficiency is compensated for by the salty Black Sea water, as a result of which the salinity of the Sea of ​​Azov increases, which has a detrimental effect on plankton - food for fish. As a result, the stock of valuable fish is reduced.

In this regard, the issue of the integrated use and protection of water resources, the preservation of the fish resources of the Azov Sea has become acute.

There are several options for solving this important and complex problem. The main ones are:

• transfer of the flow of northern rivers and lakes to the Volga basin (about thirty cubic kilometers of water per year), and then along the Volga, Tsimlyansk reservoir, Don - to the Sea of ​​Azov;
• construction of the Kerch Dam (a regulatory structure in the Kerch Strait), which limits the flow of Black Sea water into the Sea of ​​Azov.

The implementation of these projects also provides for a significant improvement in the water supply of the Azov region, an increase in the area of ​​irrigated land, the creation of artificial spawning grounds for fish, etc.

In the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On measures to prevent pollution of the basins of the Black and Azov Seas" (1976), it is noted that in recent years, as a result of construction at a number of enterprises, in cities and resorts located in the seas, effective treatment and water protection facilities, the discharge of untreated wastewater and industrial waste into rivers and other water bodies has significantly decreased. Cities and other settlements, enterprises, mines are indicated, where measures to completely stop the discharge of untreated wastewater into rivers and other water bodies of the Black and Azov Seas basins should be carried out before 1980.

The Sea of ​​Azov is of great transport importance, which especially increased after the construction of the Volga-Don navigable canal named after V.I.Lenin. Large ports are located here: Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Zhdanov, to which sea canals are laid.

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