Russia’s receding river How the Volga’s falling water level is reshaping life along its shores
In the spring of 2025, the Volga River — Russia’s largest shipping artery — became alarmingly shallow. The low water level is likely to have far-reaching effects across the Volga basin, worsening pollution in the river and its tributaries, killing off fish populations, reducing drinking water quality, and even impacting tourism. At the request of the independent journalists’ cooperative Bereg, photographer Misha Volzhsky traveled more than a thousand kilometers (over 600 miles) along the Upper and Middle Volga, stopping in 10 different cities to document both the changing river and daily life along its banks. Journalist Diana Karaseva explains what’s behind the Volga’s dramatic decline. Meduza shares an English translation of their story.
In 2025, water levels in the Volga River dropped dramatically. In Russia’s Yaroslavl region, the exposed riverbed revealed the wreck of a sunken barge, part of an ancient water supply system, antique keys, shards of pottery, and even a mammoth tooth. In Kazan, receding waters uncovered a stone-paved road and tram tracks submerged since the 1950s, when the Kuybyshev Reservoir was built. In Cheboksary, residents discovered 18th-century coins in a dried-up bay. In Balakhna, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, long-buried 17th-century salt wells reemerged. And in the town of Puchezh, in the Ivanovo region, locals learned that a children’s beach had been built atop a former church cemetery. When the water receded, human remains washed ashore.
By late May, Russia’s Federal Water Resources Agency had officially declared the situation along the Volga “strained.” Emergency officials in the Yaroslavl region warned residents that the shallow river could cause serious problems with drinking water, electricity, river shipping, and agriculture. Local authorities even shut down the Uglich Hydroelectric Station to conserve water in the reservoir — the 2025 spring inflow was the lowest ever recorded. In early April, operations at the Rybinsk Hydroelectric Station were also suspended for a week, then resumed at minimal capacity. In Rybinsk, the water level nearly reached the official low-water mark — a threshold that qualifies as an emergency. River cruise companies have already rerouted their tours.
Low water levels are one of the consequences of the climate crisis. Winters across most of Russia are becoming warmer and less snowy, and spring months drier. That means less snowmelt — and what little water there is often evaporates before it can fill the riverbeds that rely on it.
The Volga is one of those rivers. Roughly 60 percent of its annual flow comes from melted snow, and this year’s drop in water levels is largely due to a mild, low-snow winter across the European part of Russia. Most of the region’s moisture was absorbed into the ground, and the Volga’s tributaries simply didn’t collect enough runoff to sustain the river. “There was no spring flood because of the lack of snow, so the floodplains stayed dry,” said ecologist Igor Kirillov (name changed), from the Nizhny Novgorod region. “But it’s spring meltwater that feeds the springs, streams, and small rivers — all of which feed into the Volga. It’s all connected.”
When balance is lost in one part of a river system, it affects the entire network. The Volga and its tributaries form a complex, interdependent ecosystem — and low water levels upstream often cause problems for regions and water bodies farther downstream. Sometimes, the Volga itself becomes a donor for other bodies of water. This summer, in Russia’s Volgograd region, the Volga–Akhtuba floodplain — a unique natural feature between the Volga and the Akhtuba River — began to dry up. To prevent this, the authorities used pumps to redirect water from the Volga into narrow channels that connect lakes, bays, and river branches, feeding the entire floodplain.
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The quality of the Volga’s water is also getting worse each year. According to Russia’s Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet), the river and its reservoirs have for years been classified as “polluted” at most monitoring sites. Storm drains carry dirty runoff into the Volga, and untreated sewage flows into the river from both factories and residential buildings.
The waters of the Gorky, Ivankovo, Rybinsk, and Uglich reservoirs are polluted with copper and iron. Around Astrakhan, officials recorded three separate instances of dangerous zinc contamination in 2023. These pollutants enter the river through industrial wastewater, as treatment systems at factories and manufacturing sites frequently aren’t operational.
Kirillov, the ecologist, explained it this way:
The Volga region has a problem with diffuse runoff. If you walk along the riverfront in any Russian city, you’ll see a pipe discharging cloudy wastewater into the river. It’s full of oil products and other pollutants. Ideally, storm drains should at least have settling wells to filter out things like sand or grit — but in most cases, it’s just a pipe flushing road runoff straight into the water. Even if the river isn’t used for fishing, it almost always flows into one that is — or worse, one that supplies drinking water.
In Volgograd, untreated stormwater has been flowing into the Volga for decades: rainwater, mixed with gasoline, dust, and heavy metals, runs straight off the streets into the river. The storm drain system also carries runoff from agricultural fields and farms, contaminated with fertilizers and pesticides. That runoff fuels algal blooms, which deplete oxygen in the water and pose a serious threat to fish populations.
A federal initiative known as the “Volga Recovery” project was supposed to help restore the river. First proposed by Vladimir Putin in 2018, the plan aimed to reduce the discharge of polluted wastewater into the Volga threefold by the end of 2024. The government allocated 128 billion rubles (about $1.6 billion) for the construction and modernization of water treatment facilities along the river. But many of these plants were either never completed or launched in violation of environmental standards. As a result, untreated sewage continues to flow into the river.
In Volgograd, 13 new wastewater treatment stations were built in 2021 under the program, but a 2024 audit revealed what officials described as the “questionable use” of more than a billion rubles ($12.7 million) during construction. By then, even government officials were forced to acknowledge that the project had failed.
A polluted river without sufficient flow to flush out its riverbed becomes shallow more quickly, setting off a cycle: as the Volga grows more polluted, it becomes shallower, and as it becomes shallower, it grows dirtier. Organic matter settles on the riverbed, accumulating toxic substances and gradually silting up the bottom. Shallow rivers become polluted more quickly: the water warms, algae spread. When that plant matter dies and sinks, it begins to decay — a process that slowly turns the river into a swamp. Oxygen levels fall, and fish begin to die.
Scientists are increasingly documenting mass die-offs of fish in the Volga caused by hypoxia — a lack of oxygen. In 2023, the catch of Caspian roach in the Astrakhan region fell below 500 tons — the lowest level in 150 years of record-keeping and a more than 130-fold drop over that period. Over the past two decades, the species’ population has been cut in half. In 2024, regional officials imposed a moratorium on both commercial and recreational fishing of Caspian and common roach in the Volga through the end of 2025.
Valuable fish species are also at risk. Sturgeon numbers in the Volga have declined tenfold over the past 30 years — despite a long-standing fishing ban. The problem has been made worse by the shrinking of the Caspian Sea, into which the Volga flows. Over the past decade, the sea level has dropped by 114 centimeters (about 45 inches). Today, the Caspian is at its lowest level in 400 years.
Scientists are making grim predictions about the fate of the Upper Volga. If the already shallow Rybinsk Reservoir continues to dry out, spawning grounds could be exposed, leaving fish with nowhere to reproduce. The same fate could await the Gorky and Kuybyshev reservoirs. “Most fish species simply won’t spawn [in 2025],” said Alexander Tsvetkov, a researcher at the Papanin Institute for the Biology of Inland Waters. “That means we’ll lose the 2025 generation.”
Deforestation in the protected zones surrounding the Volga’s tributaries is also contributing to the river’s decline. Trees help retain moisture and stabilize riverbanks. When they’re cut down, the water balance in the ecosystem changes, and rivers dry up.
During the Soviet era, the state drained about eight million hectares (around 20 million acres) of wetlands to harvest peat — a move that also contributed to the drying of rivers. “In the past, the accumulated snow would melt in spring and partially soak into the peat bogs and forest floor,” explained Askhat Kayumov, an ecologist and head of the Dront Ecological Center. “During the drier summer months, that moisture would slowly feed into springs and rivers.”
But the destruction of these ecosystems has disrupted that cycle. Now, spring meltwater flows straight into rivers, and drought sets in by summer. The draining of wetlands continues even today: in 2025, a swampy area on the outskirts of Volgograd was drained to make way for a planned chemical plant.
Another factor behind the Volga’s decline is the artificial control of its flow. Environmentalists often describe the river as a manmade cascade of reservoirs. In the 20th century, eight hydroelectric power plants were built along the Volga. “When water is released from a reservoir, the river upstream becomes shallow,” said Lydia Baykova, a hydrologist from Yaroslavl. “Close the gates, and water levels rise — but the current slows to a crawl or even reverses.”
Before these dams were built, spring floods would carry melted snow from the river’s source to its mouth, raising water levels, increasing the current, and clearing sediment from the riverbed. But a stagnant river lacks the speed to carry away natural or human-made debris, which settles on the bottom — making the river shallower each year. “The reservoir cascade is killing the Volga. It’s completely changed the river’s rhythm,” Baykova warned. “If nothing is done, the Volga will become a chain of shallow, swampy lakes.”
Many hydrologists believe the dams already served their purpose during the industrialization period and that reservoir management priorities can be shifted from energy needs to serving the needs of people and agriculture. They’ve proposed using reservoir systems to irrigate farmland and supply drinking water. Any resulting energy losses, they say, could be offset by other types of power generation or managed through the national energy grid.
The shallowing of the Volga will affect nearly every second person in Russia. The river flows through 15 regions, carries more than half of the country’s river cargo, and sustains a basin home to 60 million people.
Photographer Misha Volzhsky on his journey along the river
I’m a native of the Volga — I’ve lived on this river for more than 40 years. If I had to name one major change I’ve seen, it’s this: the Volga turns green earlier every year. It blooms and develops this vivid green film. It used to go green in late summer, closer to August. Now, it’s already happening in June. You barely have time to enjoy a swim in warm water — the river starts blooming, and you don’t want to be in it.
There wasn’t much snow this year. The Volga always freezes in winter, but now it does so much later. All of these changes are happening gradually — almost imperceptibly.
Since the start of COVID-19, when borders were closed, people began to discover domestic tourism and started coming to the Volga. The riverbanks have gotten significantly dirtier. For some reason, people don’t treat this space like their home — they see nature as just a backdrop. But to me, the Volga is home, like an apartment. I come to the river like I’m coming home, and it gives me a sense of peace. Whenever I’m feeling anxious or unsure, I come to the riverbank. I sit there or go for a walk, and it helps me find my footing. When you stand by the river, and the only thing in front of you is sky and water, it creates a perfect space of silence — both visual and internal. All of my most important decisions have been made by the Volga.
I usually photograph the things I love. And my greatest love is this river. That’s why I’ve been photographing it for many years. I can go to the same spot over and over. I don’t need to search for something far away — it’s important for me to show the place where I live. This was my second big trip along the Volga. Last year I traveled downstream — through Tatarstan, the Ulyanovsk region, the Samara region. This year I went upstream. I’m always struck by how different the same river can be. Below Chuvashia, the Volga turns into a sea. Around the Zhiguli Nature Reserve, you get mountains. You can move slowly along the river and find yourself in places that are completely unlike one another.
This year, heading upstream, I saw a very different river — it was half as wide. South of Gorodets, between there and Balakhna, the Volga is extremely narrow. This year there was a traffic jam of ships in that stretch; they couldn’t pass because the water level was unusually low. There were hours when I drove along the river and didn’t see a single vessel. But at certain times, when the power stations released water, the river level rose, and suddenly dozens of ships would pass through in a line. I traveled for about ten days, stopping in small towns, sleeping in a new place each night — often right in the car, on a town embankment, wherever I planned to shoot in the morning. I’d get up at sunrise, sometimes even earlier. It mattered to me to be alone with the river.
I kept thinking of [Sergey] Prokudin-Gorsky, who once traveled these places — Uglich, Plyos — on a boat, photographing tsarist Russia. I was driving through the same places, where the old architecture is still there: merchant houses from that era, layered over with Soviet additions and now, more recently, modern development. You see all these layers at once.
When you start watching the river closely, your way of seeing changes. I began to notice the endless wastewater pipes draining into it, the traces of shifting water levels on bridge piers and embankments. The shallowness was especially noticeable in Rybinsk, where you could walk across stretches of exposed riverbed.
In Gorodets, it was something strange. The riverbank had turned to mud, and people and dogs were walking through it, while nearby machines were building sluices. These machines hammered steel pilings into the ground all night while I slept nearby — the “thud-thud-thud” mixing with the rain sounded like techno music.
It was interesting to meet people. They often came up to me when they saw the tripod. In Balakhna, a babushka told me how she and some neighbors pooled money and built a wooden staircase down to the water from the concrete embankment. And not far from there, I saw a boat on bicycle wheels — some guys were rolling it down the bank in the morning. It felt surreal. That boat seemed like a symbol of the shallowness — it doesn’t float anymore, but you can still roll it.
In towns like Kstovo, Balakhna, and Chkalovsk, time feels slowed down. And that’s what’s interesting — you get a sense of the country by moving along the river.
Bereg