Yenisey

Yenisey woke up from sleep and breathes with joy!

 

In evenk language it’s called Ionessi and translates as Big Water.

Together with hundreds of people of Krasnoyarsk I pass by this river every day and think little about it. Just another river, what’s so special. But Yenisey is quite a special river and here’s why.

Standing on Yenisey’s bank in Krasnoyarsk it’s hard to imagine that the waters of this river come from Mongolia and flow into the Arctic Ocean. Yenisey is actually the largest river system flowing into the Arctic Ocean. Both white bear and camels live by this great river. And now myself as well =)

 

Interesting is that Krasnoayrsk railway bridge across Yenisey river which was constructed between 1893 and 1896 was awarded the Gold Medal at the Exposition Universalle in 1900 by a special committee led by Gustave Eiffel. 

 

Sadly the railway bridge that you can see in Krasnoyarsk now is not the original one. It’s a modern copy and the original bridge was used as a scrap-metall in 2007.

In general there’s a lot of amazing things standing on Yenisey like Sayano-Shushinskay Dam, the largest power plant in Russia and the sixth-largest hydroelectric plant in the world, by average power generation.

 

After constructing of Sayano-Shushinskaya and Krasnoyarskay Dam Yenisey doesn’t freeze near Krasnoyarsk and Sayanogorsk. Some specialists blame it on the dam, but some say it’s because the cities drop a lot of used warm water into Yenisey. Also the climate is more mild and the air’s more humid.

 

Maybe because of that we’ve been having a rather unexpected warm March with the temperature reaching +13 +15C during the day.

Which makes watching the sunset over Yenisey even more pleasant =)

 

Cheers,

Kate B.