Gore-More — the folk name for Gorky Reservoir, the fourth stage of the Volga cascade.[1] The reservoir was formed by the dam of the Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station between Gorodets and Zavolzhye; it backs up the Volga as far as the Rybinsk hydraulic complex and lies across the territories of the Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, and Nizhny Novgorod Regions.[1] At its normal operating level of 84 metres, its surface area is 1,591 square kilometres, its total and usable capacity are 8.82 and 2.78 cubic kilometres respectively, its length is 434 kilometres, its width up to 16 kilometres, and its maximum depth 22 metres.[1] The official name is a holdover from the former name of the regional capital: newspapers in 1955 wrote of the "Gorky Sea," and colloquial speech transformed it into "Gore-More."[1][2]

How the sea came to be

The decision to build a hydroelectric station near Gorodets was made in November 1947: after the war the region was short of electricity, and the peat reserves at the Balakhna power station, commissioned back in 1925, were running out.[2][3] A site near Chkalovsk was also considered — it would have been faster and cheaper — but the choice fell on the Gorodetsky District.[2]

In the spring of 1948, a construction workers' settlement was started on the right bank of the Volga near the village of Pestovo: by the end of April it already had a bakery, a bathhouse, a laundry, and a shop.[2] In March 1950, Pestovo was granted the status of a workers' settlement and given the name Zavolzhye.[2] A 20-kilometre railway, Pravdinsk–Gorkygesstroy, and an 18-kilometre road were built to the site.[2] Workers came from all over the country; prisoners serving short sentences were also employed — around 2,300 of them.[2]

When quicksand was unexpectedly encountered in the foundation pit, it was frozen: chilled brine was pumped through pipes to create an ice-and-soil barrier. This was the first time artificial ground freezing had been used in hydraulic engineering construction.[2] Around the perimeter of the pit, 1,337 wellpoints were installed, and a fourteen-metre layer of quicksand was subjected to freezing.[3]

The Volga's channel was blocked on 24 August 1955 — the work took ten hours.[3] On 2 November of the same year the first generating unit supplied power to the grid, and in December 1956 the station reached its full design capacity.[2] The filling of the reservoir continued until 29 July 1957, when the water reached the 84-metre mark.[1]

What went under water

Residents of the surrounding villages and selos were warned in advance that the land would be flooded, and people were forced to leave their established homes.[2]

Chkalovsk — the former Vasilyeva Sloboda — suffered the greatest losses: a large part of the town, its merchants' houses and churches, all went under water, and the town itself was rebuilt from scratch in a new location according to a general plan.[4] The house in which the pilot Valery Chkalov was born was moved back from the shoreline; it now houses a memorial museum.[4]

Further upstream, near Yuryevets, the water submerged the Krivoozersky Monastery, founded in 1624; a memorial cross has been erected on the shore in its honor. Isaac Levitan used the appearance of this monastery in his paintings "A Quiet Monastery" and "Evening Bells."[1]

Geography

The reservoir is not uniform. Its river section stretches from the Rybinsk Hydroelectric Station to Reshma: 310 kilometres with depths of 8–10 metres. The lake section runs from Yuryevets to the Gorodets hydraulic complex: 80 kilometres with depths of 15–18 metres. Between them lies the shallow Kostroma widening, with depths of around 1.2 metres, and the deep Yuryevets section, with depths of 10–15 metres.[5]

The reservoir reaches its greatest width — over 10 kilometres — near Yuryevets, where the Unzha River flows into it; the depth near the right bank here reaches 17 metres.[1] The catchment area is 229,000 square kilometres, the long-term mean runoff is 52.2 cubic kilometres, the length of the dam front is 13.3 kilometres, and the maximum static head is 17.5 metres.[1]

In winter the reservoir freezes over. Transit navigation opens with the start of operations at the Gorodets and Rybinsk hydraulic complexes on 25 April, and closes on 17 November in Rybinsk and 19 November in Gorodets.[1]

The central and southern parts of the reservoir, in the Nizhny Novgorod and Ivanovo Regions, lie within the Puchezh-Katunki astrobleme — the scar left by the impact of a large meteorite.[1] The structure was identified in 1965; its diameter is about 80 kilometres, its age approximately 169 million years, and it is the second-largest impact crater in Russia after the Popigai crater.[1][6] Its meteoritic origin was confirmed by the Vorotilovo borehole, drilled between 1988 and 1992 to a depth of 5,374 metres.[6] The rocks shattered by the blast — rubble-and-block breccias up to 200 metres thick — are exposed precisely by the waters of the reservoir, between the settlement of Sokolskoye and Gorodets.[6]

Power generation

The dam of the Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station carries eight generating units, which are being replaced one by one. In June 2026, following comprehensive testing, the upgraded generating unit No. 4 was put into service: its output rose from 65 to 72.5 MW, bringing the station's installed capacity to 545.5 MW.[7] Replacing all eight units will bring it to 580 MW.[7]

The dam also remains the only road crossing of the Volga at this point: the Linda–Gorodets–Zavolzhye highway runs across it, and its repairs periodically change the conditions for traffic — as was the case in the summer of 2026, when the flow was made End of reversible traffic on the Nizhny Novgorod HPP dam (August 30, 2026).

Shallow water near Gorodets

Below the dam the Volga becomes a river again, and along the forty-kilometre stretch to Nizhny Novgorod the depths of the navigable channel had for many years prevented large vessels from sailing fully loaded. In 2025, 3.2 million tonnes of cargo per year passed through the Gorodets Locks.[8]

Since 2023 the hydraulic complex has been under reconstruction: locks No. 15 and No. 16 are being modernised, an additional chamber No. 15A is being built, and the approach canal and main navigation entrance are being deepened.[9][10] The work is being carried out without halting navigation — vessels pass through chamber No. 16.[10] The project cost is 31.8 billion roubles.[9] It is intended to provide a guaranteed depth of four metres along the entire forty-kilometre stretch and to raise throughput capacity to 20 million tonnes per year.[8]

On 22 July 2025, the headwall of the lock chamber No. 15–16 collapsed and flooded the under-construction chamber No. 15A.[11][12] Navigation came to a standstill: a cruise company cancelled its Nizhny Novgorod–Yaroslavl sailings, some routes had to be rerouted, and passengers were transported overland.[11] The main chamber was undamaged, and on 28 July navigation was restored: in the first 24 hours, nine cruise vessels and twenty-two large cargo ships passed through the locks.[12]

By spring 2026, the project was assessed at 75 per cent completion; chamber No. 15A was expected to be finished in June, with vessels passing through it in the second half of the year.[8][9] Temporary operation of the hydraulic complex is planned for 2026, full completion of works for December 2027, and dredging is to continue through the end of that same year.[9][10]

The shores

The young reservoir spent decades reshaping its own banks: the active phase of bank reformation and accumulation of bottom sediments occupied the first 30–40 years, after which the processes stabilised.[5]

Between 1956 and 1963 the bank retreated at an average rate of 12–17 metres per year; by 2009–2010 the rate had fallen to 0.2–1.0 metres, and by 2020 to 0.22–0.88 metres.[5] Bank-protection works reduced bank erosion by half and bed erosion by a factor of six; the rate of sediment accumulation fell by more than half.[5]

A fractal recalculation yielded a current shoreline length of 2,228 kilometres against the design figure of 2,170, while the water surface area has decreased by 82 square kilometres over the entire period of operation.[5]

The shoreline remains disputed territory in a legal sense as well: in 2026 a court ruled that 18 permanent buildings of a cottage settlement, constructed on forest-fund lands beside the reservoir in the Gorodetsky District (municipal okrug), were unauthorized structures — the "Zeleny Dol" settlement case.

Fish and spawning grounds

The main problem for fish here is the lack of natural spawning grounds: species that deposit their eggs on vegetation have nowhere to do so.[13]

In the summer of 2026, along 4.2 kilometres of bank at the mouth of the Kurtyuga River, 188 artificial spawning nests were installed — bunches of three spruce branches 65–80 centimetres long, tied with nylon twine and suspended in two tiers 50 centimetres apart.[13] The work was carried out by the Ministry of Forestry of the Nizhny Novgorod Region under the supervision of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography.[13]

The nests were found to hold 291 million 588 thousand eggs, at egg densities of 35 to 265 eggs per square centimetre.[13]

Fishing

The reservoir is one of the most visited fishing destinations in the region, and the fishing calendar is set by the spawning ban: on the Gorky Reservoir and its tributaries it runs from 15 April to 15 June.[14] During these weeks fishing is permitted only from the bank and outside spawning areas, with a single rod carrying no more than two hooks, and the daily catch is limited to five kilograms per person; commercial fishing is suspended entirely for this period.[14]

Fish stocks are maintained by releasing juvenile fish. In 2026, a total of 4.05 million fry and larvae were to be released into the water bodies of the Nizhny Novgorod Region; of these, more than twenty thousand sterlet fry were earmarked for the Gorky Reservoir. The work is carried out by the regional Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife under fisheries inspection oversight, with releases continuing until September.[15]

Recreation and safety

The Nizhny Novgorod shoreline is lined with holiday camps and retreats, and the reservoir remains the most dangerous body of water in the region after the Volga itself: according to the regional Emergency Situations Ministry, during the 2024 summer season three people drowned near Chkalovsk and at the Burevestnik camp, while six others were rescued.[16]

The open water behaves like a real sea. On 16 June 2026, fishermen filmed a waterspout above the reservoir: before their eyes, the funnel gradually widened.[17]

The sea as described by Lev Trube

The Gorky geographer and local historian Lev Lyudvigovich Trube described the young sea in "Geography of the Gorky Region," published in 1978.[18]

The Gorky Sea, the third reservoir in the Volga cascade counting from upstream, was formed in 1955; it spread widely across the meadowlands of the Upper Volga. The flooding of such valuable land is a negative consequence of building hydroelectric stations on lowland rivers. Although it is a medium-sized Volga sea, its area is considerable — around 1,600 square kilometres.

The hydroelectric station building is located in the dam near the right bank of the Volga, while near the left bank are two rows — or, as they are called, two strings — of double-chamber locks, separated by an intermediate water space, a reach, where the Gorodets Ship Repair Plant is situated. This arrangement allows vessels travelling upstream and downstream to pass through the locks simultaneously. With the sharp reduction in current speed in the reservoir compared with the former river speed (it decreased several-fold — from 0.7–1.5 to 0.2–0.4 m/sec), the duration of the ice cover increased considerably: the reservoir now freezes about a week earlier (around 20 November) and breaks up about a week and a half later (at the end of April). The average ice thickness is 65 centimetres (maximum up to 1 m).

Despite its large surface area, the Gorky Sea influences the climate of the surrounding territory only up to half a kilometre from the banks, raising air humidity and generating light breezes that moderate the midday heat in hot weather. The left bank of the sea, sometimes quite gently sloping with sandy shallows, sometimes steep and undercut, is almost entirely covered with forest — either pure pine or mixed with birch groves.

— L. L. Trube, "Geography of the Gorky Region" (1978)

Sources

  1. cruiseinform.ru — The Gorky Reservoir: location, map, photos, length, width, depth, navigation season, bridges, ports, towns
  2. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — Taming the river: how the Gorky Hydroelectric Station was built
  3. nn.aif.ru — The hydroelectric station Lenin dreamed of. How the Gorky hydroelectric station was built
  4. nn-tourist.ru — Chkalovsk — Tourist portal of the Nizhny Novgorod Region — …
  5. cyberleninka.ru — SPATIOTEMPORAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE SEDIMENT COMPLEX OF THE VOLGA RESERVOIRS: REPORT 4. THE ROLE OF BANK PROTECTION IN THE FORMATION OF BOTTOM SEDIMENTS…
  6. elementy.ru — Breccias of the Puchezh-Katunki astrobleme • Picture of the Day
  7. energyland.info — Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station capacity reaches 545.5 MW
  8. mintrans.gov.ru — After modernisation, the Gorodets hydraulic complex will be able to handle up to 20 million tonnes of cargo per year
  9. GIPERNN — The new lock chamber at the Gorodets hydraulic complex will be completed in summer 2026
  10. korabel.ru — The Gorodets hydraulic complex will be launched in temporary operation mode in 2026
  11. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — What is happening at the Gorodets hydraulic complex and how it has affected shipping and tourism
  12. seanews.ru — Vessel traffic at the Gorodets hydraulic complex restored
  13. Vremya N — 188 spawning nests installed on the Gorky Reservoir
  14. nn.aif.ru — Nikita Myshaev, 31 March 2026 — Fishing restrictions come into force in the Nizhny Novgorod Region from 1 April
  15. nobl.ru — Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, 16 July 2026 — More than 4 million juvenile fish are planned to be released into the water bodies of the Nizhny Novgorod Region this year
  16. nn.aif.ru — The Emergency Situations Ministry told Nizhny Novgorod residents which water bodies claim the most lives
  17. nn.aif.ru — Fishermen spot a waterspout on the Gorky Reservoir
  18. Trube L. L. Geography of the Gorky Region — Gorky: Volgo-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1978. 176 pp.