Katie Jones, SCAND 344 Spring 2001
Introduction -- Trade
(Emajogi, Daugava, Nemunas) -- Urban
Development (Tartu, Riga,
Kaunas) -- Use
and Misuse
Bibliography
The Baltic rivers have been very important as connectors to foreign lands and as resources:Historically they brought trade and urban development and today they serve as a source of electricity and drinking water and as an outlet to release municipal and industrial waste.All three countries have numerous rivers, but the proximity of the Daugava River (Duena or Dvina Zapadnaya) of Latvia, the Emajági River (Embach) of Estonia and the Nemunas River (Niemen) of Lithuania to the Baltic Sea has been a significant determinant in their importance.The Nemunas River and the Daugava River flow directly into the Baltic Sea, but although the Emajági River flows inland into Lake Peipsi, the Narva River connects it to the Baltic Sea.Both the Daugava River and the Nemunas River have sections on Belarussian and Russian territory (a minor section of the Nemunas River is in Poland), while the Emajági River is solely on Estonian territory.These rivers have also been important in the formation of political boundaries.The Nemunas River created the border between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Prussia, just as Lake Peipsi and the Narva River still separates Estonia and Russia today.The Daugava River also historically divided empires:First between the Swedish and Polish empires and later between the Polish and Russian empires.
A Map of the Baltic with its Rivers (Boing project)
Baltic Trade:Gateway between East and West
Because of its location on the crossroads between Russia and the rest of the Europe, the navigation of rivers has historically been a profitable business in the Baltic.By neighboring Russia, goods from as far away as the Middle East and Asia could be transported from Russian to Baltic rivers, where they would then be shipped to the rest of Europe.Beginning in the sixth and seventh centuries the Vikings surveyed the Baltic coast, later passing through the Baltic along its rivers (Vernadsky, 29).In the twelfth century German merchants also traveled to the Baltic, looking for a possible trade route to Russia (Latvian Institute).The Hanseatic League—a trading organization of German merchants in northern Europe—had evolved extensively by the fourteenth century, encompassing among other Baltic cities Tartu, Riga and Kaunas.The shipment of goods along the Baltic rivers began to decline in the nineteenth century with the advent of the railroad (Kirby, 165).
Emajogi River:Passageway to
Novgorod
The Vikings navigated through a network of rivers and lakes, then along the Emajági River and founded Novgorod, which became Russia’s first capital in the ninth century:In this prosperous city they sold furs, iron ore and amber and bought gold, silver, spices, cloth and well-made weapons (Andreyev).Novgorod also later became a member of the Hanseatic League—it was the most eastern trading post of the league and continued be important in the Russian Empire.The Novgorod town fair of 1910 demonstrates the international attention that the city attracted:400,000 visitors arrived from all over Europe and Asia, during which 250 million rubles worth of goods were sold (Bullock, 275).
The trade route along the Daugava River has historically been
the most important of the three routes because it connects to the
Volga River and the Dnieper River, which flow into the Caspian
Sea and the Black Sea respectively.Vikings first used this route
in the ninth century, traveling from Gotland, an island trading
station in the Baltic Sea, to Constantinople.It was especially
important before the Crusades, when Christian merchants had no
access to Constantinople through the Eastern Mediterranean.From
Russia came furs, honey, wax, linen and woolen cloth, while
Byzantium supplied wines, silk fabrics, jewelry and glassware.Trade
from the Orient brought spices, precious stones, silks and
weapons of Damask steel, and fine woolen cloth was imported from
the West (World Bank).Today the Volga River continues to play an
important role in the shipment of goods—it transports
timber, oil, building materials, grain and salt.The Daugava River
also still serves as an important transportation highway, along
with its key role in fishery, hydro- and heat-power engineering,
water supply for both the country’s populace and industry,
irrigation for agriculture and farming and its recreational use
(Fejes).
In the thirteenth century at the site of Klaipeda, the
Crusaders founded Memelburg, gaining a large measure of control
over Lithuania’s main waterway by blocking Lithuania’s
access to the Kursiu Lagoon (Klaipeda-A Port City on the Baltic).Without
access to the Baltic Sea, Lithuania did not have the opportunity
to trade with Gotland and Scandinavia.Later, German merchants of
the Hanseatic League developed trade routes through the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania that extended as far as the Bug River in the
Ukraine.Local merchants were allowed to conduct trade with Hansa
merchants, but unlike in the Baltic provinces, the Hansa
merchants had a hard time obtaining a monopoly on Lithuanian
trade, partially because of the tariffs that the Grand Duchy
enacted with Poland and Livonia (Mills).The Nemunas River also
played an important role in Lithuania’s trade with Prussia:Lithuanians
exported timber, animals and grains, while they imported iron
goods, fabric, salt and herring (Lithuanian Art Museum).In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when Jurbarkas’s forests
were being cut down for their timber and floated along the
Nemunas River to Koenigsburg and Gdansk, it gained commercial
significance (SuperTravelNet).
The first inhabitants of Tartu built a settlement in the 400’s.By 600 A.D. they had built a fortress—Tarbatu (Tartu City Government).The city was founded in 1080 and archaeological digs reveal that by the eleventh century Tartu was funneling trade between Scandinavia and Russia based on various imported items, coins and hoards found in and around Tartu (Tartu City Museum).Tartu later became a member of the Hanseatic League:The Luebeck Chapel, a former part of Janni Church, harkens to Hanseatic times when North German traders were interested in trade with Novgorod, Russia (Tartu City Government).
Riga had been an important trade post even before the arrival of Northern German merchants at the end of the twelfth century, who came because of their interest in this natural port on the Baltic Sea which could transport merchants to Russia on the Daugava River.Upon their settlement of the region, the Germans encountered Livs:The natives had little villages that were concentrated on the mouths of the Daugava and Gauja Rivers.Riga was a settlement of Liv merchants and craftsmen that associated with a neighboring settlement of Liv fishermen.Both settlements were in contact with the castles of the Livonian and Latgallian tribes and the other craftsmen communities on the Gauja River (Riga History).The Gauja River was an important river in facilitating trade with Southern Estonia and Pskov, Russia, but it could never be of as much importance as the Daugava River, because it was too shallow to permit sea-going ships to travel along its course (Strautmane).
In 1201 Riga began
its construction as a city and was admitted in 1282 into the
Hanseatic League.In 1861 a rail link between Riga and Duenaburg
(Daugavpils) was forged, allowing goods to be shipped from St.
Petersburg to Warsaw.This British-funded railway sparked the
decline in riverborne traffic.While in the 1850’s about
1,000 barges carried flax and hemp along the Daugava River from
Riga every year, by the late 1860’s it had dropped to only
300 (Kirby, 165).
Because of its position on the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris Rivers—the two largest rivers in Lithuania—Kaunas (Kovno) became an important trading center.It was also an ideal location to build settlements, because the region had big mounds that could support fortresses.Archaeological digs reveal Roman items and coins dating from 1000 A.D. in the Kaunas region.The first fortress was built in Kaunas in 1030 and it was mentioned in writing later in the eleventh century.In 1317 Kaunas became a town and in 1408 it was presented the Magdeburg rights by the Grand Duke Vytautas, giving it the status of municipal autonomy.Its period of prosperity occurred during Vytautas’ reign after the victory of Lithuania-Poland in the battle of Zalgiris:This prosperity brought growth in trade, crafts, culture and contact with Western Europe (Prienai 2nd high school).
Rivers are important resources, valuable for drinking water
and generating electricity.Lithuanians rely heavily on ground
water for potable water, while about thirty to thirty-five
percent of Estonians and Latvians obtain their drinking water
from surface water (Maziliauskas).The Baltic countries generate
electricity from their rivers to a differing degree, but all
three pollute their rivers by releasing inadequately treated
municipal and industrial waste into them.
Emajági
- Peipus - Narva River Basin:
Because Estonia has a bounty of oil-shale, it is self-sufficient and does not need to generate its electricity from hydroelectric power.The Estonian government, however, has plans to increase the amount of renewable energy being produced from 8% of the total in 1996 to 13% in 2010.To accomplish this goal it is considering reopening the pre-1939 hydro plants and constructing a hydroelectric plant on the Narva River with a large generating capacity.The energy sector would therefore use less oil-shale, which increases the amount of pollution in the atmosphere, surface and groundwater (World Bank).
The Emajági
River also funnels the untreated municipal waste of Tartu into
Lake Peipsi, causing eutrophication and reduced fish stocks.The
inadequate treatment of sewage of Tartu and Pskov, Russia, along
with agricultural activities around the lake, renders its water
undrinkable (Roll).These environmental problems, although they do
not appear to be hazardous to public health, negatively affect
the local economy because it prohibits the creation of recreation
and tourist facilities.There are also additional problems:Runoff
from chemical and ash-laden industrial waste piles elevates the
pH level, and heating plants harm animal life by releasing warmer
water into the rivers that had previously served as a coolant
(World Bank).
Daugava
River:
Latvia is the only country that utilizes hydroelectric power to generate the majority of its electricity:It derives more than sixty percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power, generating the remainder with thermal plants, peat and fuel oil (Energy Information Administration).There are three hydroelectric plants on the Daugava River, which are referred to as the Kegums-Plavinas-Riga cascade.Along Belarus’s section of the river there are forty-five industrial and municipal point sources, thirty-one pig and cow breeding farms and two large poultry factories (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency).In the large industrial centers of Polotsk and Novopolotsk there are also oil refineries.The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has tried to sponsor cooperation between the countries that share the Daugava River to help lessen the impact of pollution on the river (Swedish EPA).
The Rumbula air base, like other former Soviet bases, contributes to the contamination of both the river and drinking water (Thunrik).On the Latvian portion of the river there are two major cities, Riga and Daugavpils, which cannot adequately treat waste:Although both cities have water treatment plants, Daugavpils can only handle mechanical treatment.Industrial waste is sent through the same system as municipal waste, even though it cannot properly treat the toxic pollutants (Baltic Sea Joint Environmental Programme).The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development tried to mitigate this problem by donating $22.5 million to Riga Water in 1996 (EBRD).
Nemunas
River:
Like Estonia, Lithuania also does not rely on hydroelectric power for the majority of its electricity.The Ignalina nuclear power plant, situated along the Nemunas River, produces eighty percent of the country’s electricity.It generates the remainder of its energy at a hydroelectric station on the Nemunas River and by burning coal and peat (World of Work).The fuel power plants—Elektrenai, Kruonis Hydro Power Plant, Kaunas Hydro Power Storage Plant and Mazeikiai Combined Heat and Power Plant—are a backup to the Ignalina nuclear power plant (Vaselevicius).
The most polluted river of the three, the Nemunas River supports industry:Food processing industries, textile companies and tanneries, oil refineries, chemicals plants, and sulphite and paper mills (Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Programme).Like Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania also has a problem with treating sewage, which often contains heavy metals.A 1997 study of the waste water released to surface water bodies revealed that 49 percent met discharge standards, 34 percent was inadequately treated and 17 percent was released without treatment (Media Source Directory).These figures indicate the state of sewage treatment—waste water receives mechanical treatment in Vilnius and Klaipeda, but no treatment facilities exist in Kaunas (Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Programme).The river is also polluted by mineral fertilizers and pesticides, which farmers prefer to use instead of natural manure (World Bank).It also endures harm because a large volume of its water is extracted for cooling the Ignalina nuclear power plant.
Summary:
The Baltic rivers were important in its history and still are in modern times.In the past they acted as highways for trade, leading to the development of cities, and today they provide drinking water and electricity to the surrounding populations.All three countries misuse their rivers by dumping sewage and industrial waste into them.
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