Flood, high water, mountain rivers are stormy, powerful and full of water. And this, I must say, makes me happy, very happy. What happened to the rivers in the south of our country (I won’t talk about other regions, I wasn’t a witness) last year is very unpleasant. The drought affected not only the flora and productivity of important crops, but also the animal world. Just imagine how many inhabitants of rivers and reservoirs who simply dried up to small puddles died. And now the revelry of nature, the melting of snow and energy, the crazy energy of water rushing along a mountain river.
This summer, the Belaya River could be crossed knee-deep, such a drought, although usually in summer the depth was more than 2 meters. Even the old-timers do not remember such a shallow river. Our neighbors, who are 70 years old and who have lived all their lives in the village of Dakhovskaya on the banks of the Belaya River, said that it was impossible to cross the river even if tied with a rope to a tree.
Now a little about the river itself:
Belaya has a very diverse relief, from the source to the village of Guzeripl it is a very mountainous, stormy and at the same time absolutely crystal clear river. The source of the Belaya River is located on the slopes of the Fisht and Oshten mountains. It flows from the glacier, it is the westernmost and lowest located glacier in the Caucasus. From the village of Guzeripl to the village of Kamennomostsky, this is still a stormy river, but in which you can already fully swim (except for the narrow gorges of Granite and Khadzhokhsky), in summer the water temperature reaches 24 degrees, invigorating and clean. And below the village of Kamennomostsky, the river becomes more and more flat.
Historically, the Belaya River flowed into the Kuban River. In 1953, the Tshchik reservoir was built in order to contain the leash that goes exactly along the Belaya River, because at the time of snowmelt, the water level can jump by 3-4 meters within an hour. Now Belaya flows into the Krasnodar reservoir. Recently, in the fall of 2018, this could be observed firsthand. Usually in autumn, in November, it is already snowing in the mountains and remains lying until the spring thaw. But there was heavy rain due to the warm temperature in the region of Mount Fisht and the level of the Belaya River rose within a few hours, flooded the roads, essentially cutting off several villages (Dakhovskaya and further towards Guzeripl) from the rest of the world. But the flood came down literally within a day.
The water has risen almost to the edge of the fence The water has risen almost to the edge of the fence
It must be said that many people, when they come to rest or the owners of hotels built close to the river (to attract tourists), do not believe that that river, which is not at all large and quiet in summer, up to 15 meters wide, can spill over a hundred meters in a matter of hours. So in 2018, a lot of recreation centers were simply washed away and the owners of the recreation centers ran and tried to save their property, covered with sandbags the places where water approached the hotels, but did not save much. The locals know all this and understand it perfectly, so from the old times only temporary workers settled along the river, and now, for some reason, very expensive houses stand close to the river, not understanding the danger of such cohabitation with the elements.
There are two hydroelectric power stations on the Belaya River (there will be a separate post about them soon): the Maikopskaya hydroelectric power station and the Belorechenskaya hydroelectric power station.
The banks of the Belaya River are rocks composed of argelite and rocky beaches. It must be said that the Belaya River, having sufficiently cold water, creates a unique microclimate very strongly along its banks. When in Krasnodar in summer even at night the temperature reaches 40 degrees, in the villages along the Belaya River and even in the city of Maykop (the capital of the Republic of Adygea) in summer the temperature is rarely so high, or even does not rise above 30 degrees. And how nice it is to plunge into the cool waters of the purest mountain river on a hot August day.
Video of this moment:
Many more interesting things in our Zen:
Island of love. Awesome tourist place in Lago-Naki
The first cable car of Adygea. What awaits us at the top
Suspension bridge over the mountain river Belaya in Adygea