Dniester
Encyclopedia
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe
. It runs through Ukraine
and Moldova
and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto
state of Transnistria
.
also derives from the same Sarmatian Iranic meaning, "the river on the far side.") The older name, Tyras, is from Scythian tūra, meaning "rapid." The names of the Don
and Danube
are also from the same Proto Indo-European word *dānu - river.
In Russian
, it is known as Днестр, translit.
Dnestr, in Yiddish
: Nester נעסטער; in Turkish
, Turla and during antiquity, it was called Tyras in Latin
and Danastris in Greek
. Classical authors have also referred to it as Danaster.
, near the city of Drohobych
, close to the border with Poland
, and flows toward the Black Sea
. Its course marks part of the border of Ukraine and Moldova
, after which it flows through Moldova for 398 kilometres (247.3 mi), separating the bulk of Moldova's territory from Transnistria
. It later forms an additional part of the Moldova-Ukraine border, then flows through Ukraine to the Black Sea, where its estuary
forms the Dniester Liman
.
Along the lower half of the Dniester, the western bank is high and hilly while the eastern one is low and flat. The river represents the de facto end of the Eurasian Steppe
. Its most important tributaries are Răut
and Bîc
.
, the Dniester River was the center of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth at the time. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture fluourished in this area from roughly 5300 to 2600 B.C., leaving behind thousands of archeological sites of settlements of up to 15,000 inhabitants, making them some of the first farming communities in history.
In antiquity, the river was considered one of the principal rivers of European Sarmatia
, and it was mentioned by many Classical geographers and historians. According to Herodotus
(iv. 51) it rose in a large lake, whilst Ptolemy
(iii. 5. § 17, 8. § 1, &c.) places its sources in Mount Carpates (the modern Carpathian Mountains
), and Strabo
(ii.) says that they are unknown. It ran in an easterly direction parallel with the Ister (lower Danube
), and formed part of the boundary between Dacia
and Sarmatia. It fell into the Pontus Euxinus to the northeast of the mouth of the Ister; the distance between them being, according to Strabo, 900 stadia (Strab. vii.), and, according to Pliny
(iv. 12. s. 26), 130 miles (209.2 km) (from the Pseudostoma). Scymnus
(Fr. 51) describes it as of easy navigation, and abounding in fish. Ovid
(ex Pont. iv. 10. 50) speaks of its rapid course.
Greek authors referred to the river as Tyras . At a later period it obtained the name of Danastris or Danastus (Amm. Marc. xxxi. 3. § 3; Jornand. Get. 5; Const. Porphyr. de Adm. Imp. 8), whence its modern name of Dniester (Neister), though the Turks still called it Turla during the 19th century. (Cf. Herod. iv. 11, 47, 82; Scylax, p. 29; Strab. i. p. 14; Mela
, ii. 1, etc.; also Schaffarik, Slav. Alterth. i. p. 505.) The form is sometimes found. (Steph. B.
p. 671; Suid. s. v. and .)
Between the World Wars, the Dniester formed part of the boundary between Romania
and the Soviet Union
. During World War II
, German and Romanian forces battled Soviet troops on the western bank of the river.
After the Republic of Moldova
declared its independence in 1991, the small area to the east of the Dniester that had been part of the Moldavian SSR refused to participate and declared itself the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, or Transnistria, with its capital at Tiraspol
on the river.
The Stryi River
is one of the Dniester's tributaries
. Tributaries on the east side are the Răut
River, the Ikel River, the Bîc River
, and the Botna River. Tributaries on the west side are Zolota Lypa River
(140 kilometres (87 mi)), Koropets River, Dzhuryn River, Seret River
(250 kilometres (155.3 mi)), Zbruch River
(245 kilometres (152.2 mi)), Smotrych River
(169 kilometres (105 mi)), Ushytsia River (112 kilometres (69.6 mi)), Kalius River, Liadova River, Murafa River (162 kilometres (100.7 mi)), Rusava River, Yahorlyk River (173 kilometres (107.5 mi)), and the Kuchurhan River
(123 kilometres (76.4 mi)).
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. It runs through Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
state of Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
.
Names
The name Dniester derives from Iranic Sarmatian Dānu nazdya "the close river." The Dnieper RiverDnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
also derives from the same Sarmatian Iranic meaning, "the river on the far side.") The older name, Tyras, is from Scythian tūra, meaning "rapid." The names of the Don
Don River (Russia)
The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....
and Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
are also from the same Proto Indo-European word *dānu - river.
In Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, it is known as Днестр, translit.
Romanization of Russian
Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet...
Dnestr, in Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
: Nester נעסטער; in Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Turla and during antiquity, it was called Tyras in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Danastris in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. Classical authors have also referred to it as Danaster.
Geography
The Dniester rises in UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, near the city of Drohobych
Drohobych
Drohobych is a city located at the confluence of the Tysmenytsia River and Seret, a tributary of the former, in the Lviv Oblast , in western Ukraine...
, close to the border with Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and flows toward the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
. Its course marks part of the border of Ukraine and Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, after which it flows through Moldova for 398 kilometres (247.3 mi), separating the bulk of Moldova's territory from Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
. It later forms an additional part of the Moldova-Ukraine border, then flows through Ukraine to the Black Sea, where its estuary
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
forms the Dniester Liman
Dniester Liman
Dniester Liman of Dniester Estuary is a liman, formed at the point where the river Dniester flows into the Black Sea. It is located in Ukraine, in Odessa Oblast. The city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi lies on its western shore and Ovidiopol on its eastern shore. Shabo, situated downstream of...
.
Along the lower half of the Dniester, the western bank is high and hilly while the eastern one is low and flat. The river represents the de facto end of the Eurasian Steppe
Eurasian Steppe
The Eurasian Steppe is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Biome. It stretches from Hungary to Mongolia...
. Its most important tributaries are Răut
Raut
Răut, also referred to as Reut is a river in Moldova, a right tributary of Dniester. Răut, generally navigable until 18-19th century, is navigable today only by small recreational boats.The towns Bălţi, Orhei and Floreşti are located by the river....
and Bîc
Bîc River
Bîc is a river in Moldova, a right tributary of Dniester.The upper flow of Bîc cuts a deep canyon in Codri Hills. The capital of Moldova, Chişinău, is situated by Bîc. A dam at Bîc by Chişinău holds the Chişinău Sea reservoir of area about 10 km². In summer Bîc often dries out and turns into...
.
History
During the prehistoric Neolithic EraNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
, the Dniester River was the center of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth at the time. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture fluourished in this area from roughly 5300 to 2600 B.C., leaving behind thousands of archeological sites of settlements of up to 15,000 inhabitants, making them some of the first farming communities in history.
In antiquity, the river was considered one of the principal rivers of European Sarmatia
Sarmatia
Sarmatia or Sarmatian can refer to:* the land of Sarmatians, western Scythia as described by many classical authors, such as Herodotus in the 5th century BC* Sarmatian languages, part of Scythian languages...
, and it was mentioned by many Classical geographers and historians. According to Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(iv. 51) it rose in a large lake, whilst Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
(iii. 5. § 17, 8. § 1, &c.) places its sources in Mount Carpates (the modern Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
), and Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
(ii.) says that they are unknown. It ran in an easterly direction parallel with the Ister (lower Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
), and formed part of the boundary between Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
and Sarmatia. It fell into the Pontus Euxinus to the northeast of the mouth of the Ister; the distance between them being, according to Strabo, 900 stadia (Strab. vii.), and, according to Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
(iv. 12. s. 26), 130 miles (209.2 km) (from the Pseudostoma). Scymnus
Scymnus
Scymnus of Chios was a Greek geographer. He was said to have been the author of a periegesis in prose.An anonymous verse periegesis first published at Augsburg in 1600, originally ascribed to Marcianus of Heraclea, was long thought to be the lost work of Scymnus, but this was shown not to be the...
(Fr. 51) describes it as of easy navigation, and abounding in fish. Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
(ex Pont. iv. 10. 50) speaks of its rapid course.
Mela
Mela is a Sanskrit word meaning 'gathering' or 'to meet' or a Fair. It is used in the Indian subcontinent for all sizes of gathering and can be religious, commercial, cultural or sports. In rural traditions melas or village fairs were of great importance...
, ii. 1, etc.; also Schaffarik, Slav. Alterth. i. p. 505.) The form is sometimes found. (Steph. B.
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...
p. 671; Suid. s. v. and .)
Between the World Wars, the Dniester formed part of the boundary between Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, German and Romanian forces battled Soviet troops on the western bank of the river.
After the Republic of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
declared its independence in 1991, the small area to the east of the Dniester that had been part of the Moldavian SSR refused to participate and declared itself the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, or Transnistria, with its capital at Tiraspol
Tiraspol
Tiraspol is the second largest city in Moldova and is the capital and administrative centre of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic . The city is located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River...
on the river.
Tributaries
Stryi River
The Stryi River starts in the Carpathian mountains in western Ukraine. It snakes through the mountains running for 144 miles . After 120 miles it passes Stryi...
is one of the Dniester's tributaries
Tributary
A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...
. Tributaries on the east side are the Răut
Raut
Răut, also referred to as Reut is a river in Moldova, a right tributary of Dniester. Răut, generally navigable until 18-19th century, is navigable today only by small recreational boats.The towns Bălţi, Orhei and Floreşti are located by the river....
River, the Ikel River, the Bîc River
Bîc River
Bîc is a river in Moldova, a right tributary of Dniester.The upper flow of Bîc cuts a deep canyon in Codri Hills. The capital of Moldova, Chişinău, is situated by Bîc. A dam at Bîc by Chişinău holds the Chişinău Sea reservoir of area about 10 km². In summer Bîc often dries out and turns into...
, and the Botna River. Tributaries on the west side are Zolota Lypa River
Zolota Lypa River
Zolota Lypa is a river in western Ukraine. It flows through Berezhany district, forming the large Berezhany lake north of Berezhany. It is a left tributary of Dniester, belonging to the Black Sea basin....
(140 kilometres (87 mi)), Koropets River, Dzhuryn River, Seret River
Seret River
The Seret is a minor river in Ukraine, a tributary of the Tysmenytsia River. The Seret flows through the center of Drohobych, a city located in Lviv Oblast in the west of Ukraine....
(250 kilometres (155.3 mi)), Zbruch River
Zbruch River
Zbruch River is a river in Western Ukraine, a left tributary of the Dniester.It flows within the Podolia Upland starting from the Avratinian Upland. Zbruch is the namesake of the Zbruch idol, a sculpture of a Slavic deity in the form of a column with a head with four faces, discovered in 1848 by...
(245 kilometres (152.2 mi)), Smotrych River
Smotrych River
The Smotrych River is a left tributary of the Dniester, flowing through the Podillia upland of western Ukraine. Its length is 169 km , and its drainage basin covers 1,800 km² . The average width of the river is 10-15 meters wide, and at one point exceeds 40 m. The historic city of...
(169 kilometres (105 mi)), Ushytsia River (112 kilometres (69.6 mi)), Kalius River, Liadova River, Murafa River (162 kilometres (100.7 mi)), Rusava River, Yahorlyk River (173 kilometres (107.5 mi)), and the Kuchurhan River
Kuchurhan River
The Kuchurhan is a river in Eastern Europe. It is a tributary of the Dniester which begins on the Podolian Upland in Ukraine. It then flows SSE and forms part of the border between Transnistria in Moldova and the Odessa Oblast in Ukraine...
(123 kilometres (76.4 mi)).