Lena River, the blue artery of Siberia

Begins in the east part of Lake Baikal, after a 4,400-kilometer journey north from the mountains of south-central Russia, the Lena River fractures into myriad streams that fan out across the tundra and empty into the Arctic Ocean via the Laptev Sea. The Lena river is the largest river of Northeast Siberia. The origin of the name of the Lena River is said to have been derived from the local word Elyu-Ene, meaning the ‘Large River’. Its delta (43,563 square kilometers in area) is recognized in the Guinness Book of Records as being third largest in the world after the Ganges-Brahmaputra and the Mekong deltas. With 20-25 kilometers wide at its mouth, the middle part of Lena river reaches 15 kilometers. Its far northern location keeps the Lena River Delta frozen for as long as seven months of the year, but during the short summer, it melts into a wetland of tremendous ecological importance. Climate experts are interested in the area because changes in the volume of water emptying into the sea as well as the depth of the permafrost (soil that remains frozen year-round) are indicators of Arctic climate change.

As one of the three great rivers of Siberia along with the Ob and Yenisei, the Lena river is a major transportation route in central Siberia. It was first explored in the 17th century by Cossack fur hunters led by Demid Pyanda. In 1623, Pyanda explored a 2,400-kilometer stretch of the river. Since then, a large number of explorers have ventured out onto the Lena in order to record its course and discover its potential. In 1885, an expedition funded by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences, and headed by Baron Eduard von Toll and Alexander von Bunge, was carried out to explore the Lena Delta and its path of entry into the Arctic Ocean. Ever since the discovery of the river, the Lena has been used as a significant trade and transport route for cargo into the Arctic Ocean.

With extremes of temperature and vast stretches of northern forests (84 percent), Lena is one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet. Few people live in the region and there is only one city in the entire Lena basin, Yakutsk, the administrative seat of the former Yakut Autonomous Socialist Republic and now the capital of a semi-independent Yakutia, renamed the Republic of Sakha in 1991. Although the ice has been measured at around 53 inches in the south and up to 90 in inches at the delta, Lena river is almost entirely navigable, allowing for the transport of cargo, including excavated minerals, fur, food, and industrial products, from their respective production areas to the consumption and trade centres along the banks and the rest of the world by way of the Arctic Ocean routes. This blue artery of Siberia flows mostly through Sakha, but its origins are in the Irkutsk District, immediately west of Lake Baikal.

The vast tracts of land along the Lena river are protected in the form of nature reserves, such as the Lena Delta Nature Reserve, the Lena Pillars, and the Ust-Lensky Nature Reserve.

The Lena delta Nature Reserve is a scientific wildlife protected area located in the delta of the Lena River in Sakha Republic, in the far north of eastern Siberia, Russia. The reserve is divided into two subareas and has a total land area of 14,330 square kilometres, making it one of the largest protected areas in Russia. The delta itself has a size of about 30,000 square kilometres, making it one of the largest in the world. It protects large concentrations of birds, including swans, geese and ducks, loons, shorebirds, raptors, and gulls. It is also an important fish spawning site.

The geological formations known as the Lena Pillars have fascinated travellers to Yakutia since the 17th century. About 140 km upriver from Yakutsk, the rock of the cliffs alongside the river has been eroded away into delicate shapes of reddish-brown colours. The sheer columns are made of Kimberly limestone, with the surrounding softer rock being eroded over the millennium. Today the stone rocks resemble towering creatures, pillars and columns, reaching over 150 metres high. The Lena Pillars extend along the river for about 80 kilometers.

The Ust-Lensky Nature Reserve is an enormous delta of the Lena river. With its thousands of islands, lakes, and channels, it is one of the most spectacular wonders of the Russian Arctic. The delta is the second largest in the world, fanning out over 32,000 square kilometers. The reserve was established in 1986 comprising two sites: Deltovy, in the central part of the delta, and Sokol, located in the northwest of the Primorsky Kryazh and Kharaulakhsky Mountain Range. Terrestrial communities are those of herb, and green moss tundra. Elfin willows are widespread along the shores together with the 400 vascular plant varieties, which 20 of them are rare species: Androsace gorodkovii, Corydalis gorodkovi, Saxifraga lacteal to name a few. There are also 30 mammal species, including reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), bighorn sheep, polar fox, black-capped marmot.

Encompassing a region rich in wildlife and natural resources, as well as one of the world’s largest deposits of gold and diamonds, as well as iron ores and deposits of coking coal, which are the two key ingredients in steelmaking. Other coal and natural gas deposits also occur in this region. The river also holds an immense potential for development of hydroelectric power, but only a small fraction of this prospect has been exploited to date. Because the Lena is almost entirely fed by mountain snows, spring thaws can bring disastrous floods, followed by equally breakups of river ice, sizable chunks of which can destroy entire sections of the riverbank and any settlements alongside it. The annual flow of the river is very irregular, with 90 to 95 percent of all of its discharge in spring and summer, when its volume increases by as much as 10 times that of the winter months. This irregular flow has limited the development of the hydroelectric projects in the Lena basin, though there are two large dam-reservoir complexes on the Vilyuy.

The Lena River is well known for its pure blue water and home to many types of wildlife. Not only is the Lena River still one of the cleanest sources of freshwater on this planet, but it also flows along its natural course, as its flow has not been impeded by the large-scale construction of dams and reservoirs. This sets the Lena apart from many other rivers that have been exploited for their respective high hydroelectric power-generating potentials. Threats from oil spills, however, do occur, as a large number of vessels carrying cargo ply on this river regularly. In fact, 25,000 tons of oil from the Lena River pollute the Arctic Ocean each year. Even though large areas of the river basin are protected, threats from overfishing, overgrazing, deforestation of land for cultivation, and excessive water extraction for irrigation of croplands continue to be ongoing problems.