The Oka (, ) is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as the town of Kaluga. Its length is  and its catchment area is . The Russian capital Moscow sits on one of the Oka's tributaries—the Moskva.

Name and history 
The Oka river was the homeland of the Eastern Slavic Vyatichi tribe. By the 5th century the land around the Oka river was inhabited by different Slavic tribes. The Baltic tribe of Galindians also lived in the western part of the Oka basin. Turkic tribes also inhabited the Oka area. The Oka river was also inhabited by Vikings and other peoples from Scandinavia. Artifacts of Scandinavian origin were found along the Oka - Volga route. There is no consensus opinion where the name Oka originated from.

From the Mongol conquest until about 1633, the Oka was the last line of defense against steppe raiders. Later Zasechnaya cherta, a chain of fortification lines, was created to protect Grand Duchy of Moscow and later the Tsardom of Russia from the Crimean-Nogai Raids. It was south of the original line along the Oka.

The river gave its name to the Upper Oka Principalities, situated upstream from Tarusa. In 1221 Grand Duke Yuri II of Vladimir founded Nizhny Novgorod, later to become one of largest Russian cities, to protect the Oka's confluence with the Volga. The Qasim Khanate, a Muslim polity, occupied the middle reaches of the Oka (around the city of Kasimov) in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Before the construction of the railways in the mid-19th century and the building of the Moscow Canal in the 1930s, the Oka, along with its tributary Moskva, served as an important transportation route connecting Moscow with the Volga. Due to the Oka's and Moskva's meandering courses, travel was not particularly fast: for example, it took Cornelis de Bruijn around 10 days to sail from Moscow down these two rivers to Nizhny Novgorod in 1703. Traveling upstream may have been even slower, as the boats had to be pulled by burlaks.

Landmarks 
The banks of the river are dotted with historical and cultural sites, including the medieval monasteries of Murom, the mosques and minarets of Kasimov, the fortified kremlins of Kolomna and Serpukhov, the memorial houses of Vasily Polenov and Sergey Yesenin, the excavated ruins of Old Ryazan and the Oka Shukhov Tower.

The Prioksko-Terrasny Biosphere Reserve lies along the left bank of the river opposite the town of Pushchino and is known for its wisent breeding nursery.

Main tributaries 

The largest tributaries of the Oka are, from source to mouth:

 Zusha (right)
 Upa (right)
 Zhizdra (left)
 Ugra (left)
 Protva (left)
 Nara (left)
 Lopasnya (left)
 Besputa (right)
 Osyotr (right)
 Moskva (left)
 Vozha (right)
 Pronya (right)
 Para (right)
 Pra (left)
 Gus (left)
 Moksha (right)
 Tyosha (right)
 Ushna (left)
 Kishma (right)
 Klyazma (left)

Cities and towns on the Oka 

 Oryol
 Belyov
 Chekalin
 Kaluga
 Aleksin
 Tarusa
 Serpukhov
 Stupino
 Kashira
 Protvino
 Pushchino
 Kolomna
 Ryazan
 Kasimov
 Murom
 Pavlovo
 Navashino
 Gorbatov
 Dzerzhinsk
 Nizhny Novgorod

In culture
The Oka appears as the title and main theme in a popular, nostalgia-filled military filled song(in which it is compared to the Vistula river in Poland) written by Leon Pasternak of the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division which was formed nearby in 1943. The unit fought all the way to Berlin in subordination the Red Army.

References

External links 

 

Rivers of Kaluga Oblast
Rivers of Moscow Oblast
Rivers of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast
Rivers of Oryol Oblast
Rivers of Ryazan Oblast
Rivers of Tula Oblast
Rivers of Vladimir Oblast