Southern Bug


The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh, and sometimes Boh River, is a navigable river located in Ukraine. It is the second-longest river in Ukraine.
The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about from the Polish border, from where it flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes. It is long and drains.
Major cities on the Southern Bug are Khmelnytskyi, Khmilnyk, Vinnytsia, Haivoron, Pervomaisk, Voznesensk and Mykolaiv.
Between 1941 and 1944 during World War II the Southern Bug formed the border between the German-occupied Ukraine and the Romanian-occupied part of Ukraine, called Transnistria.

Nomenclature, etymology and history

Herodotus refers to the river using its ancient Greek name: Hypanis. During the Migration Period of the 5th to the 8th centuries CE the Southern Bug represented a major obstacle to all the migrating peoples in the area.
The long-standing local Slavic name of the river, Boh, may derive from a root meaning "rich". The 17th-century French military engineer and geographer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan recorded the name of the river as Boh Ruthenian.
From the 16th to the 18th centuries most of the Southern Ukraine formed part of the Crimean Khanate and/or of the Ottoman Empire; the river had the Turkic name Aq-su, meaning the "White river".
"Bug", a Russian name, became established during the colonial period in Ukraine and known internationally. It was a misnomer given by a Russian geologist :ru:Ласкарев, Владимир Дмитриевич|Vladimir Laskaryev at the beginning of 20th century.
On March 6, 1918 the Central Council of Ukraine adopted the law "For the administrative-territorial division of Ukraine", dividing Ukraine into numerous lands. One of those lands in the upper stream of the river was named "Boh land". Previously in the 18th century there had existed the Bohogard phalanx as part of the Zaporizhian Sich centered in the city of Gard.

Tributaries

The main tributaries of the Southern Bug are, from source to mouth :
The Varvarivskyi Bridge over Southern Bug in Mykolayiv is a swing bridge with Europe's largest span. It is also the southernmost bridge over the river.

Navigation

The river is technically navigable for dozens of kilometers up from its mouth; several riverports exist.
In 2011, plans were announced to revive commercial freight navigation on the Southern Bug northerly of Mykolayiv to facilitate the increasing grain export from Ukraine. As of April 2018, freight navigation is renewed and active between the eastuary and the grain terminal in the village of Prybuzhany newly-built by Nibulon.

Gallery