The Oka (UK: /ˈɒkə/, US: /ˈoʊkə/; Russian: ОкаIPA:[ɐˈka]) is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as the town of Kaluga. Its length is 1,500 km (930 mi) and its catchment area 245,000 km2 (95,000 sq mi).[5] The Russian capital Moscow sits on one of the Oka's tributaries—the Moskva, from which the capital's name is thought to be derived.[6][7]
Name and history
The Oka river was the homeland of the Eastern Slavic Vyatichi tribe.[8] By the 5th century the land around the Oka river was inhabited by different Slavic tribes.[9][better source needed] The Baltic tribe of Galindians also lived in the western part of the Oka basin.[10] Turkic tribes also inhabited the Oka area. The Oka river was also inhabited by Vikings and other peoples from Scandinavia.[citation needed] Artifacts of Scandinavian origin were found along the Oka–Volga route.[11][12] There is no consensus opinion where the name Oka originated from.[citation needed] It could, however, be cognate with Sanskrit ओघ ogha, meaning 'stream' or 'current'.[citation needed]
From the Mongol conquest until about 1633, the Oka was the last line of defense against steppe raiders. Later Zasechnaya cherta, a chain of fortification lines, was created to protect Grand Duchy of Moscow and later the Tsardom of Russia from the Crimean-Nogai Raids. It was south of the original line along the Oka.
The river gave its name to the Upper Oka Principalities, situated upstream from Tarusa. In 1221 Grand Duke Yuri II of Vladimir founded Nizhny Novgorod, later to become one of largest Russian cities, to protect the Oka's confluence with the Volga. The Qasim Khanate, a Muslim polity, occupied the middle reaches of the Oka (around the city of Kasimov) in the 15th and 16th centuries.[citation needed]
Crossing the Oka, 1810
Before the construction of the railways in the mid-19th century and the building of the Moscow Canal in the 1930s, the Oka, along with its tributary Moskva, served as an important transportation route connecting Moscow with the Volga. Due to the Oka's and Moskva's meandering courses, travel was not particularly fast: for example, it took Cornelis de Bruijn around 10 days to sail from Moscow down these two rivers to Nizhny Novgorod in 1703.[13] Traveling upstream may have been even slower, as the boats had to be pulled by burlaks.[14]
The Oka appears as the title and main theme in a popular, nostalgia-filled military field song written by Leon Pasternak of the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division, which was founded near the river in 1943. The song compares the river to the Vistula river in Poland. The unit fought all the way to Berlin in subordination to the Red Army.
Main tributaries
View to Molitovsky bridge from bank of Oka river. July 2014The Oka in Ryazan Oblast, near Rybnoye
The largest tributaries of the Oka are, from source to mouth:[5]
^Vasmer, Max (1986–1987) [1950–1958]. "Москва". In Trubachyov, O. N.; Larin, B. O. (eds.). Этимологический словарь русского языка [Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch] (in Russian) (2nd ed.). Moscow: Progress.
^Smolitskaya, G.P. (2002). Toponimicheskyi slovar' Tsentral'noy Rossii Топонимический словарь Центральной России (in Russian). pp. 211–2017.
