Ogosta ( bg, Язовир Огоста) is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

and

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in the north-west of

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

. The second largest

artificial lake A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in Bulgaria (after the

Iskar Reservoir The Iskar Reservoir (язовир „Искър“) is the largest reservoir in Bulgaria. It is situated on the Iskar River and provides 2/3 of the water for the capital Sofia, also being used for producing hydroelectricity. The reservoir has a t ...

), and also in the wider Balkan Peninsula, it is one of the biggest in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. Collecting the waters of the rivers

Ogosta The Ogosta ( bg, Огоста , Latin: ''Augusta''), is the largest river in Northwestern Bulgaria, a right tributary of the Danube. It originates at Chiprovska Mountain, 2,168 meters high section of the Western Balkan Mountains, at about an altitu ...

, Burzia, and Zlatitsa, the lake begins only 600 meters to the south-west of the edge of Montana city, and its surface is some 60 meters above the ground level of the city. Its water catchment area covers 948 km,² and the area of the lake itself is 24 hectares. The average water volume is 384 Mm,³ while the maximum volume is 506Mm³. According to the ''

Cambridge Ancient History ''The Cambridge Ancient History'' is a multi-volume work of ancient history from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, published by Cambridge University Press. The first series, consisting of 12 volumes, was planned in 1919 by Irish historian J. B. Bur ...

'', the name "Ogosta" may represent the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

name Augusta.John Bagnall Bury et al., ''The Cambridge Ancient History: the Assyrian Empire'' (Cambridge University Press, 1925, reprinted 1991), p. 595 The construction of the dam which created the lake took twenty years and was completed in 1986. For the project two villages were flooded, Jivovtsi and Kalimanitsa, and their inhabitants were found new homes in nearby

Berkovitsa Berkovitsa ( bg, Берковица ) is a town and ski resort in northwestern Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Berkovitsa Municipality, Montana Province and is close to the town of Varshets. , it has a population of 13 ...

and Montana. One purpose of the new reservoir was to irrigate large areas of agricultural land lying between Montana and Zlatia, near Lom, but by 1989 only half of the necessary infrastructure of water-pipes had been laid down, and the irrigation scheme was never completed. Now the waters of the lake are used instead to generate electricity, and two hydro-electric power-stations called “Kosharnik” and “Ogosta” have been built below the dam. In 1999 the lake was designated for commercial fishing and it now holds a wide variety of fish, including carp,

carassius ''Carassius ''is a genus in the ray-finned fish family Cyprinidae. Most species in this genus are commonly known as crucian carps, though this term often specifically refers to '' C. carassius''. The most well known is the goldfish (''C. auratus ...

rudd ''Scardinius'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae commonly called rudds. Locally, the name "rudd" without any further qualifiers is also used for individual species, particularly the common rudd (''S. erythrophthalmus''). Th ...

, carp bream,

perch Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Per ...

, nase,

barbus ''Barbus'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. The type species of ''Barbus'' is the common barbel, first described as ''Cyprinus barbus'' and now named ''Barbus barbus''. ''Barbus'' is the namesake genus of the subfamil ...

and others.

References

*Translated from Огоста (язовир) in the Bulgarian Wikipedia. {{Authority control Reservoirs in Bulgaria Landforms of Montana Province