The Ubort (Russian and Ukrainian: Уборть; , ''Ubarć'') is a river in the
Zhytomyr Oblast
Zhytomyr Oblast ( uk, Жито́мирська о́бласть, translit=Zhytomyrska oblast), also referred to as Zhytomyrshchyna ( uk, Жито́мирщина}) is an oblast (province) of northern Ukraine. The administrative center of the obla ...
(
Ukraine) and the
Homiel Voblast (
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
), a right tributary to the
Pripyat
Pripyat ( ; russian: При́пять), also known as Prypiat ( uk, При́пʼять, , ), is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1 ...
in the
Dnieper
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...
river basin. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .
The Ubort is fed mostly by melting snow (~70%) and peaks during the spring run-off, usually mid-March to early May, and maintains an even, albeit lower, flow during the summer months. It can freeze as early as mid-November or as late as January, and the ice breaks up as early as mid-February or as late as mid-April.
Course
The Ubort originates in the hills above and south of the village of Andreyevichi in Zhytomyr Oblast. It arises at elevation 207 m., from a series of small creeks flowing westward off of the Simony Hills, elevation 222 m, and northeastward off of the Marynivka Hills, elevation 225 m. The river flows north past
Yemilchyne
Yemilchyne ( uk, Ємі́льчине, translit. ''Yemil’chyne'', russian: Емильчи́но) is an urban-type settlement in Zviahel Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Eur ...
and
Olevsk, thence across the international border into Belarus near Borovoye (Баравое). It then flows northeast and north past
Lelchytsy, and Moiseyevichi, before entering the Pripyat at
Pyetrykaw. The mouth of the river is at an elevation of 120 meters.
The principle tributaries of the Ubort are the 67 km Perga (Перга) with its mouth at in the Ukraine, and the 58 km Svidovets (Свидовець) with its mouth at in Belarus.
The river has a low incline dropping only 87 meters over its 292 kilometer length. The result is a meandering river with many swamps and oxbox lakes. The area of its
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
is . The average annual flow of water at the mouth of the Ubort is 24.4
Cubic metres per second.
History
The name appears in Latin as ''Hubort'' in a 1412 survey document. Some maps in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mark it as the ''Олевская'' (''Olevskaya'') or in Polish ''Olewsko'', as being of the town of Olevsk. The origin of the name ''Ubort'' is obscure, but seems to be related to the use of boards (''ubort'') in making artificial hollow trees for honey bees.
In July 1941, between 30 and 40 Jews from
Olevsk were taken to the Ubort River, where they were humiliated and tortured; some of them were murdered in the
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
.
It was contaminated during the
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
.
References
Books
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ubort River
Rivers of Belarus
Rivers of Gomel Region
Rivers of Zhytomyr Oblast