RiverRussia · RU
Reka Bira
The Bira is a 261-kilometre river in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Russia's Far East, one of the larger left-bank tributaries of the Amur. The Google Maps point for "Reka Bira" sits close to the river's headwaters, at the confluence of the Sutara and Kuldur where the first waters gather off the Sutarsky and Lesser Khingan ranges. From those forested foothills the Bira drops onto a lowland plain and threads eastward all the way to the Amur, carrying the name the Evenki and Manchu-speaking peoples simply gave to "river" itself. There is no single gated sight here. The Bira is a linear landscape — a river valley you travel through, stand beside, and fish along — and its appeal is exactly that open, unhurried quality. It is the watercourse that gave the Jewish Autonomous Oblast's capital its name: Birobidzhan, the first part of which comes straight from the Bira. Following the river means passing small railway towns, broad meanders below the hills, and, in autumn, a river alive with salmon.