Kuban River

The Kuban river is about 523 miles long.

Click on the map to zoom in.

The Kuban starts on the north face of Mt. Elbruz, the highest mountain in Russia at 5642 meters/ 18,511 ft.

The Kuban then flows across beautiful plains on the north side of the Caucasus mountains in Krasnodar Province and empties into the Sea of Azov.

Check out this image of the Elbruz massif and the grazing area below.

A lot of the water from the Kuban is diverted for irrigation on the rich farmlands of Stavropol and Krasnodar.

The upper Kuban is a relatively quiet and little traveled area of the Black Sea region. No huge cities. No big tourist centers. Just natural beauty.

But farther down the Kuban is the city of Krasnodar with 640,000 people the 18th largest city in Russia.

In 1792 after the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1792, Tzarina Catherine II rewarded the Black Sea Cossacks with the lands around the Kuban. About 25,000 people moved from Ukraine to settle the area which at the time was largely uninhabited steppe.

The Kuban is extremely important because it drains such a vast area.

The Kuban river valley and the nearby areas are incredibly rich forests. More about the forests in a later post, right now we are just trying to figure out where all the water comes from to form the Black Sea.

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