ABSTRACT
The Volga is the embodiment of all Russian rivers. At all stages in the nation's history the Volga has been one of the main axes of population settlement and of the development of the country's economy and culture. Outstanding sociologists, politicians, historians, and economists, eminent figures in literature and arts, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and other sciences were born, grew up, received their education, and worked in the towns and cities on the Volga banks. The reconstructed Volga is part of the integral transport system of deep-water ways in the European USSR. The use of the water and biological resources of the Volga basin, especially of the Volga and its major tributaries, has always been complex. The nature and degree of this complex usage is changing along with the leading branches of the national economy which are the primary consumers of these resources.
