Kolyma River
| Kolyma River | |
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Debin through the morning mist over the Kolyma River, 8 September 2004
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| Country | Russia |
| Basin features | |
| River mouth | East Siberian Sea |
| Basin size | 644,000 km2 (249,000 sq mi) |
| Tributaries |
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| Physical characteristics | |
| Length | 2,129 km (1,323 mi) |
| Discharge |
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The Kolyma River (Russian: Колыма́; IPA: [kəlɨˈma]) is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia. It begins at the confluence of the Kulu River and the Ayan Yuryakh River and empties into the Kolyma Gulf (Kolymskiy Zaliv) of the East Siberian Sea, a division of the Arctic Ocean, at 69°30′N 161°30′E / 69.500°N 161.500°E. The Kolyma is 2,129 kilometres (1,323 mi) long. The area of its basin is 644,000 square kilometres (249,000 sq mi).
The Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, becoming free of ice only in early June, until October.
In 1640 Dimitry Zyryan (also called Yarilo or Yerilo) went overland to the Indigirka. In 1641 he sailed down the Indigirka, went east and up the Alazeya. Here they heard of the Kolyma and met Chukchis for the first time. In 1643 he returned to the Indigirka, sent his yasak (tribute) to Yakutsk and went back to the Alazeya. In 1645 he returned to the Lena where he met a party and learned that he had been appointed prikazchik (land administrator) of the Kolyma. He returned east and died in early 1646. In the winter of 1641–42 Mikhail Stadukhin, accompanied by Semyon Dezhnyov, went overland to the upper Indigirka. He spent the next winter there, built boats and sailed down the Indigirka and east to the Alazeya where he met Zyryan. Zyryan and Dezhnyov stayed at the Alazeya, while Stadukhin went east, reaching the Kolyma in the summer of 1644. They built a zimovye (winter cabin), probably at Srednekolymsk, and returned to Yakutsk in late 1645.
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