Identifier: russia00dobsrich (find matches)
Title: Russia;
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Dobson, George Grove, Henry M Stewart, Hugh, 1884-1934 Haenen, F. de
Subjects: Soviet Union -- Description and travel
Publisher: London, A. and C. Black
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ve the right bank. AtSaratoff, the largest town on the Volga, the riveris two miles broad and already at sea-level. Thevolume of water is probably as great here as at itsmouth, for in its lower course there are fewtributaries, little rain, and continual evaporation.On the left bank is a whole succession of flourish-ing German colonies, where the descendants of thesettlers placed here by Catharine the Great arestill distinguished from their Russian neighbours byreligion, dress, language, cleanliness, and prosperity.Saratoff—a Tartar name meaning yellow hill—has a new University, but otherwise the place isuninteresting. Much less dull are the streets of Tsaritsin, withtheir motley crowd of Tartars, Kalmucks, Cossacksfrom the Don and Kirghiz, with long flowingchapans, ffistened with silk or leathern girdles, andround, pointed white felt hats. This town hasbeen connected by popular etymology with thedeath of a Kings daughter, but the word meansproperly yellow water. With its extremely
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THE VOLGA 357 favourable position for commerce, at the point ofjunction with the Don, it has grown with Americanrapidity, and is one of the busiest and most thri-ving of the \^olga towns. Some way to the eastlies the district town of TsarefF, in the neighbour-hood of wliich was Sarai, the capital of the Khanof the Golden Horde. It was here that theRussian Princes paid obeisance to the Tartars.After Tsaritsin the appearance of the Volga changes. Then sands beginTo hem his watery course, and dam his streams.And spHt his currents. But this archipelago of small islands is at lengthpassed, and once more its giant flood, which inspring has no end to it, stretches itself out in un-broken expanse on either hand. The right bankis no longer hilly, and from midstream it is oftendifficult to say where the water ends and the landbegins. Now and again a tug pulls long caravansof barges upstream from Astrakhan, and white orbrown-sailed fishing-boats make for tree-shelteredvillages on the banks; but

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