Yenisei River

Yenisei (Russian: Енисе́й) is the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean, and the fifth longest river in the world. It is slightly shorter but with 1.5 times the flow of the Mississippi-Missouri. Rising in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course to the Kara Sea, draining a large part of central Siberia, the longest stream following the Yenisei-Angara-Selenga-Ider being about 5,500 km.

The upper reaches, subject to rapids and flooding, pass through sparsely populated areas. The middle section is controlled by a series of massive hydroelectric dams fuelling significant Russian primary industry. Partly built by gulag labor in Soviet times, industrial contamination remains a serious problem in an area hard to police. Moving on through sparsely-populated taiga, the Yenisei swells with numerous tributaries and finally reaches the Kara Sea in desolate tundra where it is icebound for more than half the year.