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Concept
Angara
Summary
The Angara (Ангара́, ənɡɐˈra; Buryat: Ангар, Angar, () "Cleft") is a major river in Siberia, which traces a course through Russia's Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai. It drains out of Lake Baikal and is the headwater tributary of the Yenisey. It is long, and has a drainage basin of . It was formerly known as the Lower or Nizhnyaya Angara (distinguishing it from the Upper Angara). Below its junction with the Ilim, it was formerly known as the Upper Tunguska (Верхняя Тунгуска, Verkhnyaya Tunguska, distinguishing it from the Lower Tunguska) and, with the names reversed, as the Lower Tunguska.
Leaving Lake Baikal near the settlement of Listvyanka, the Angara flows north past the Irkutsk Oblast cities of Irkutsk, Angarsk, Bratsk, and Ust-Ilimsk. It then crosses the Angara Range and turns west, entering Krasnoyarsk Krai, and joining the Yenisey near Strelka, south-east of Lesosibirsk.
Four dams of major hydroelectric plants - constructed since the 1950s - exploit the waters of the Angara:
Irkutsk Dam, forming the Irkutsk Reservoir, which floods the valley of the river from its source to Irkutsk, and slightly raises the water level in Lake Baikal
Bratsk Dam, forming the Bratsk Reservoir
Ust-Ilimsk Dam, at Ust-Ilimsk, forming the Ust-Ilimsk Reservoir
Boguchany Dam, at Kodinsk
The reservoirs of these dams flooded a number of villages along the Angara and its tributaries (including the historic fort of Ilimsk on the Ilim), as well as numerous agricultural areas in the river valley. Due to its effects on the way of life of the rural residents of the Angara valley, dam construction was criticized by a number of Soviet intellectuals, in particular by the Irkutsk writer Valentin Rasputin - both in his novel Farewell to Matyora (1976) and in his non-fiction book Siberia, Siberia (1991).
The Angara is navigable by modern watercraft on several isolated sections:
from Lake Baikal to Irkutsk
from Irkutsk to Bratsk
on the Ust-Ilimsk Reservoir
from the Boguchany Dam (Kodinsk) to the river's fall into the Yenisey.
Official source
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