Dnieper navigation

[Krot]

I am a newbie at this forum and at first I'd like to express my great respect to RUS developers and all AGEOD team for their successful pioneer exploit in such an obscure (for Westerners at least) field of military history as Russian Civil War. After my very positive gaming experiences with NC, WiA and RoP (ACW is a mammoth I was not able to swallow) I was deeply impressed by RUS scale and finesse. RUS has revived my interest to this crucial period of Russian history as the aforementioned AGEOD titles RUS ignited my reading about Lace wars.
Nevertheless such complex and large scale game as RUS needs be improved and corrected in some aspects. With AGEOD excellent record for supporting their games I felt obliged to try to participate in improving RUS.
This post concerns some evident geographical discrepancies in RUS which I think affect gameplay rather seriously. As activities of numerous river and littoral flotillas played significant role in Russian Civil war I'll start with river issues:

Dnieper navigation.
In RUS Dnieper is navigable all the way from Bobruisk down to Kherson. Playing as Reds in short campaign I was able to drag my Dnieper flotilla from Kiev to Novocherkassk passing Crimea by coastal waters. On the way my flotilla defeated Cossack Don flotilla and blockaded all Southern Whites Azov sea ports. I could enter with my flotilla either Donets or Don and go to Kharkov or Voronezh respectively. In real life such an exploit was absolutely impossible till 1932 because of giant rocks and waterfalls (they were called "thresholds" and "fences" by locals) that blocked the Dnieper's waterway on the distance of 68 versts (72,5 km) between Ekaterinoslav and Aleksandrovsk. Only in 1932 during Soviet Industrialization the rocks were demolished to create the Dnieper hydroelectric power station water basin. Till that time navigation was possible only with oar boats and rafts during short period of high water. That's why in May 1919 Southern Whites with their limited resources had to form two separate Lower Dnieper and Middle Dnieper flotillas.

If you see that the problem I mentioned has to be addressed I'll continue to post my thoughts concerning Daugava (Western Dvina) and Northern Dvina.

[Narwhal]

Interesting input ! This is typically the sort of information hard to find, even when making historical research.

[PhilThib]

In game terms, this is easy to fix. Now, wasn't any kind of navigation possible on the Dnepr, may be portage of some sorts or transfer overland at Alexandrovsk?

In the 9th century Varangians ships sailed all the way down to Byzantium after all

[Krot]

The Dnieper navigation was limited only in this short part of Dnieper . The goods and passengers were transported by boats to “porogs” (thresholds) and then moved by land. Northern border of this barrier was at Lotsmanskaya Kamenka (just to the South of Ekaterinoslav) and Southern border - at Kichkassy (10 km to the North of Aleksandrovsk). So in game terms Ekaterinoslav should be terminal port of North to Middle Dnieper navigation and Aleksandrovsk – terminal port of Lower Dnieper navigation.
There was very narrow and dangerous waterway in the rocks called “Kozachy khod” (the Cossacks’ Pass) which allowed navigation of unloaded and maneuverable light oar vessels of special construction (so called “tchaykas” – seagulls). Your compatriot Guillaume le Vasseur de Bauplan who served as military engineer for Polish kings in 1630-40s told about his experience of the porogs passing in his “Description d'Ukraine”.
Varangians going from the North to the Black Sea via Russian river system with spring high waters did not used longboats but monoxilas (boats made of a single oak trunk) built by local Slavs. For centuries local nomads (Cumans and then Tatars) used to attack caravans of merchants who accompanied their goods unloaded before the Dnieper porogs.

[Baris]

For centuries local nomads (Cumans and then Tatars) used to attack caravans of merchants who accompanied their goods unloaded before the Dnieper porogs.

Interesting thing is Kumans used some ancient turkic language of white Kıpcak tribe. Meaning white skin and blond hair. There is also a name in dutch as koeman. It should be related.

[Krot]

Interesting thing is Kumans used some ancient turkic language of white Kıpcak tribe. Meaning white skin and blond hair. There is also a name in dutch as koeman. It should be related.

Medieval Russians called Cumans "Polovtsy" (originated from the word "polova" = straw) because of their straw-like blond hair.

[Baris]

Medieval Russians called Cumans "Polovtsy" (originated from the word "polova" = straw) because of their straw-like blond hair.

Interesting, there is some sources that states, some moved to regions south of black sea and to balkans and mostly hungary and ukraine. "Ata-man" is title as father of horsemen given to cossacks. It should be related to migrated kuman-kıpcak or polovtsy as russian. Originated from Ural-Altaic language of the nomads .