DESNA RIVER

'Desna' () is a river in Russia and Ukraine, left tributary of the Dnieper. The word means "right hand" in the Old East Slavic language. Its length is 1,130 km (702 mi), and its drainage basin covers 88,900 km².
In Ukraine, the river's width ranges from 60 to 250 meters, with its average depth being 3 m (10 ft). The mean annual discharge at its mouth is 360 m³/s (12,713 ft³/s). The river freezes over from early December to early April, and is navigable from Novhorod-Siverskyi its mouth, which totals about 535 km.

Contents

Geography

Course

Tributaries

Cities and towns on the Desna

See also

External links

Geography

Course

The Desna River originates in the Smolensk Heights of Smolensk Oblast, Russia. The river's source lies eastsoutheast from the city of Smolensk and not far from Yelnya in a forest near the village of Naleti. The Desna then flows south through a low and swampy valley toward the city of Bryansk, where the river's right bank rises.
After its confluence with the Seim River near the Russian-Ukrainian border, the river then widens, splitting into numerous smaller branches. Its right bank declines again near the city of Chernihiv, and again near one of its tributaries, the Oster, where the Desna continues its course through a low, muddy plain until it finally reaches its mouth near Kiev at the Dnieper River.

Tributaries

The Desna has 18 right and 13 left tributaries. The most significant are:

★ Sudost (R) ★ Snov (R)

★ Seim (L) ★ Oster (L)

Cities and towns on the Desna

★ Zhukovka, Russia ★ Bryansk, Russia ★ Trubchevsk, Russia

★ Novhorod-Siverskyi, Ukraine ★ Chernihiv, Ukraine ★ Oster, Ukraine

The Svensky Monastery is located at the confluence of the Desna and the Svin River.

See also

★ List of rivers of Russia

★ List of rivers of Ukraine

External links

★ Desna River at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine

★ Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary — Desna, tributary of the Dnepr