The 2,300-mile Mother Volga, a river of history, folklore, song and art, is far more than Europe’s longest waterway. Like the Mississippi in America, it defines Russia’s spiritual heartland.

The Volga is one of the largest rivers in the world and the longest river in Europe. It is so long that its source and mouth are located in areas that endure completely different seasons.

A view of Saratov from the Volga river. Source: Lori/Legion-Media By the early 1800s Saratov had grown to be a significant port city and the railroad arrived in 1870.

Nyet. Traffic on the Volga, Europe’s longest river, has rebounded sharply in the past two years, as we learned on a recent two-week cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Astrakhan, on the Volga River, once was known as Russia's caviar capital — but no more. As the fish neared extinction, Russia banned all commercial sturgeon fishing in the area and the export of ...

Kicked off on Friday and running until July 26, the art exhibition Echoes from the Volga River: Masterpieces of the Peredvizhniki from the Tretyakov Gallery is bringing 53 masterpieces by 35 ...

In the nineteenth century, the Volga, which had once been the marker of a frontier, came to be seen as an intrinsically Russian river, the “Mother Volga” glorified in art, music, poetry, and later ...

The 2,300-mile Volga River is Russia's pride and lifeblood. It provides water, power and transport and has played a key role in Russia's history. Now, in post-Soviet times, the river and its ...

Submitted photo University of Upper Iowa art professor John Siblik will place willow branches in the Volga River with help from volunteers Friday. The effort is part of an environmental art ...

Steeped in folklore, legend and the ever-changing beauty of nature along the river’s banks, “A Volga Tale” nonetheless hauls its archetypal characters out of fairyland and into the 20th ...

Art and literature depicted but also relieved the woes. The Volga—tranquil and picturesque, yet also magnificent and powerful—was a wellspring of early 19th-century Romanticism.