The Lena is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. Permafrost underlies most of the catchment, 77% of which is continuous. It is long, and has a drainage basin of. The Lena is the eleventh-longest river in the world.
Course
Originating at an elevation of at its source in the Baikal Mountains south of the Central Siberian Plateau, west of Lake Baikal, the Lena flows northeast, being joined by the Kirenga, Vitim and Olyokma. From Yakutsk it enters the Central Yakutian Lowland and flows north until joined by its right-hand tributary the Aldan and its most important left-hand tributary, the Vilyuy. After that, it bends westward, flowing alongside the Kharaulakh Range, part of the Verkhoyansk Range, and then making its way nearly due north to the Laptev Sea, a division of the Arctic Ocean, emptying south-west of the New Siberian Islands by the Lena Delta – in area, and traversed by seven principal branches, the most important being the Bykovsky channel, farthest east.
Basin
The area of the Lena river basin is calculated at and the mean annual discharge is 489 cubic kilometers per year. Gold is washed out of the sands of the Vitim and the Olyokma, and mammoth tusks have been dug out of the delta.
Tributaries
The Kirenga flows north between the upper Lena River and Lake Baikal. The Vitim drains the area northeast of Lake Baikal. The Olyokma flows north. The Amga makes a long curve southeast and parallel to the Lena and flows into the Aldan. The Aldan also curves roughly parallel to the Lena until it turns east and flows into the Lena north of Yakutsk. The Maya, a tributary of the Aldan, drains an area almost to the Sea of Okhotsk. The T-shaped Chona-Vilyuy system drains most of the area to the west. The main tributaries of the Lena are, from source to mouth:
It is commonly believed that the Lena derives its name from the original Even-Evenk name Elyu-Ene, which means "the Large River". According to folktales related a century later, in the years 1620–1623 a party of Russian fur hunters under the leadership of Demid Pyanda sailed up Nizhnyaya Tunguska, discovered the Lena, and either carried their boats there or built new ones. In 1623 Pyanda explored some of the river from its upper reaches to the central Yakutia. In 1628 Vasily Bugor and 10 men reached the Lena, collected 'yasak' from the 'natives' and then founded Kirinsk in 1632. In 1631 the voyevoda of Yeniseysk sent Pyotr Beketov and 20 men to construct a fortress at Yakutsk. From Yakutsk other expeditions spread out to the south and east. The Lena delta was reached in 1633. Two of the three group of survivors of ill-fated Jeannette expedition reached Lena Delta in September 1881. The one led by engineer George W. Melville was rescued by native Tungus huntsmen. Of the group led by Captain George W. De Long only two of the men survived, the others died of starvation. Baron Eduard Von Toll, accompanied by Alexander von Bunge, led an expedition that explored the Lena delta and the islands of New Siberia on behalf of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences in 1885. In 1886 they investigated the New Siberian Islands and the Yana River and its tributaries. During one year and two days the expedition covered, of which were up rivers, carrying out geodesic surveys en route. The Lena massacre was the name given to the 1912 shooting-down of striking goldminers and local citizens who protested at the working conditions in the mine near Bodaybo in northern Irkutsk. The incident was reported in the Duma by Kerensky and is credited with stimulating revolutionary feeling in Russia. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov may have taken his alias, Lenin, from the river Lena, when he was exiled to the Central Siberian Plateau.
Delta
At the end of the Lena River there is a large delta that extends into the Laptev Sea and is about wide. The delta is frozen tundra for about seven months of the year, but in May the region is transformed into a lush wetland for a few months. Part of the area is protected as the Lena Delta Wildlife Reserve. The Lena delta divides into a multitude of flat islands. The most important are : Chychas Aryta, Petrushka, Sagastyr, Samakh Ary Diyete, Turkan Bel'keydere, Sasyllakh Ary, Kolkhoztakh Bel'keydere, Grigoriy Diyelyakh Bel'kee, Nerpa Uolun Aryta, Misha Bel'keydere, Atakhtay Bel'kedere, Arangastakh, Urdiuk Pastakh Bel'key, Agys Past' Aryta, Dallalakh Island, Otto Ary, Ullakhan Ary and Orto Ues Aryta. Turukannakh-Kumaga is a long and narrow island off the Lena delta's western shore. One of the Lena delta islands, Ostrov Amerika-Kuba-Aryta or Ostrov Kuba-Aryta, was named after the island of Cuba during Soviet times. It is on the northern edge of the delta.
